


Entangled

by marchh



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Gen, M/M, Mentioned jim/barb, POV Alternating, Slow Burn, Soulmates, Unreliable Narrator, follows events through S2a, ish, mentioned jim/lee
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:13:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 45,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22206172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marchh/pseuds/marchh
Summary: Jim Gordon never cared about finding his soulmate, and the fact that he does at the end of a pier a second before he’s meant to shoot him doesn’t change a thing.
Relationships: Oswald Cobblepot/Jim Gordon
Comments: 26
Kudos: 85





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so late to this fandom, but I’m obsessed with the ship and this would not leave me alone

Soulmates are one in a million.

So, all in all rare, but not impossible. Jim doesn’t even personally know anyone who’s found their soulmate, but he’s heard of friends of friends and their life-changing stories and fairy tale happily ever afters.They’re stories he smiles politely at, not one he spends his free time longing for. He’s got nothing against them, but he can’t quite bring himself to want such a faraway, abstract concept when his Barbara Kean has her arms around him, all soft and sweet in his embrace.

Love is a little miracle of its own, one in a million or not. Two people finding each other, a connection. A choice. Jim doesn’t think the existence of soulmates is really any different.

There’s a fancy function of hers they’re missing, but he’s beat, all things considered, so he begs out. Barbara is understanding. She asks if he’s eaten, giggles at his answer.

“When I am Mrs. Gordon and you are here all the time, I’m going to put you on a proper, healthy diet,” Barbara says. 

Mrs. Barbara Gordon. It has a nice ring to it, Jim thinks, as he kisses her and the two of them drop backwards into the sofa.

.

It turns out the Wayne murder isn’t a close and shut as he thought it was and all the worse when Carmine Falcone comes to verify this in person. He mentions Jim’s dad, and he hates the Don all the more for it.

“Gotham’s on a knife’s edge,” Falcone tells him, as if that justifies his dirty deeds.

Jim doesn’t see how fixings lies with more lies and feigning justice with crime can possibly save the city from that.

Gotham is his home. It was his father’s home. Jim feels a sort of responsibility for it he doesn’t think he can explain. Wearing this badge was supposed to mean something, and if he doesn’t uphold honor and justice, what hope does the city have in keeping its?

Jim believes in the individual - the rights of the individual, and the power of the individual. Because if people lose the belief that they can make a change, nothing will ever change. 

It turns out Falcone’s not done with him.

When Harvey Bullock stops the car, he tells Jim he wasn’t being honest earlier. He was ashamed, is what he was. Jim tells him as much, and then he stops short. They’ve walked around to the back of the car, and there in his partner’s trunk is a man Jim recognizes as one of Fish Mooney’s. Pale skin, dark hair - he was holding an umbrella - he looks all the more sickly for it now, with a spot of blood on his face from a beating.

Jim barely registers the words - he knows whatever’s coming next is going to be bad. He wants to pull his gaze away from the condemned man’s eyes. 

“This is the snitch.”

Jim does a double take. Him? What for? 

“Falcone wants you to walk him to the end of the pier and put a bullet in his head,” Bullock says. “Then everybody knows you’re with the program.”

It’s kill or die - and not just Jim but, as Bullock points out, he’s next, and Barbara.

Barbara - can he kill this innocent bystander - no angel perhaps, but innocent here nonetheless - to save her? For her? He pictures her face, and takes the cloth and gun.

Jim’s mind is reeling - not confused, sharp. Planning his next move. He’s been in enemy territory before, and he’s always made it out alive. 

He can do this.

“Please Mr. Gordon, just let me live.” A litany of pleas spill from the blubbering fellow as Jim shoves him along at gunpoint toward the end of the pier. He tunes most of them out, babbling pleas mostly, but he can tell Oswald Cobblepot is right when he says he’s clever. He’s astute. Has an eye for deception.

“Shut up,” Jim growls, grabbing him by the collar and - he must have grazed him by the chin, just a moment - a jolt of electricity shoots through him.

Shit.

Fuck.

Of all of the  times - 

Oswald Cobblepot feels it too - it renders the chatterbox mute and his eyes widen in shock and that rouses Jim from his struck-by-lightning stupor into a panic as he forcibly turns the man around, adrenaline giving him the nerves to bite out:

“Don’t ever come back to Gotham.”

He fires, and drops the man under the pier, before turning to look back at his partner, giving nothing away.

He’s just exiled his own soulmate.

.

The next step is more complicated.

Barbara opens the door, her expression tears.

“My God James, I’ve been so worried,” she says, throwing her arms around him. She hasn’t seen him for over a day and has every right to be worried, but Jim isn’t sure he can make it all better. He feels like a zombie, as he shuffles coward into her embrace, and lets himself lean on her.

She smells the same, she feels the same. He loves her. This doesn’t change anything. 

The fact that he’s just found his soulmate, only to - for all intents and purposes - kill him, doesn’t change a damn thing.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s not even that he’s found his soulmate (who harbors no warm feelings for him, Oswald might add), it’s that being away from the city itself quite literally pains him.

Gotham, for all its stink and filth, is a technicolor smorgasbord compared to the dull, lifelessness of anywhere else. He has to find his way back. 

Jim Gordon. Oswald contemplates the fellow once he’s procured a vehicle for himself. He was right - as usual. The moment their eyes met in that gritty back alley of Fish Mooney’s club Oswald knew there was something special about him - and not just because he was a bright-eyed rookie who in his righteousness decided he needed to check on a scuffle he overheard somewhere he had no reason to stick his nose in. He’s a soldier, he knows war. Oswald saw how he responded to his partner’s insistence that sometimes one needed to do bad things for a good reason, and filed it away for later. He was, not quite a bright light, Oswald instinctively knows the man has too many demons to be considered an angel, but a shiny find indeed in the gutters of Gotham. 

Oswald schemes his way back into the city. He wasn’t lying on the pier either, he wouldn’t, not to Jim Gordon. There is a war coming, everyone knows Gotham’s a powder keg with the murders of the Waynes. It was so obvious - perfectly orchestrated, in Oswald’s eyes. And now with Falcone resting on his laurels, everyone else is getting reckless. Oswald himself as well, but he soon enough saw the error of his ways, and used it to his advantage, used it to put himself squarely into the pocket of the one at the top - and that was still Falcone. All Falcone really needed was to show he still had some fire in his veins, and that was easily enough remedied.

Oswald lies on his back, contemplating how Arkham will be weighed into the grand scheme of things, plotting his next moves. He spares a moment to wonder what Detective Jim Gordon’s lips would feel like on his, and can’t help a smile. How lucky that fate had gifted him the perfect counterpart to help Oswald make his way in this town. Of  course he would too turn out to be his soulmate. That jolt he’d felt on the pier - he admits, he hadn’t anticipated that. He’s fantasized, of course, wondering whether his soulmate would appear after he’d already established himself at the top, or a partner to help him make it there on the way. Clearly he and Jim Gordon were meant to be, and the fates saw this as well. 

Someone he could trust - he wants to laugh. Oswald is a consummate liar and betrayal is a daily incident in his profession, but now he had something worth more its weight in gold: someone to trust. He was going to be unstoppable. 

Dreams of exacting revenge and claiming his rightful seat at the table make the kowtowing and menial work easy enough to stomach. In no time, Oswald has made it into Maroni’s kitchen, working his way up from dishwasher to prized confidant.

People look at Oswald and see his slight build and pale self and forget he knows this city, knows how it operates, its nooks and crannies. It’s easy enough to find muscle dumb enough to pull a hit on the restaurant in broad daylight and take off with cash they’d never get to keep. The apartment is one that would never be connected back to Oswald, not because it’s impossible, but because he knows no one will look. 

In just days, Oswald has worked his way up from having absolutely nothing to a seat by the city’s number 2’s side, and bags full of his cash. It’s a resourcefulness people around him don’t  appreciate enough, but they soon will see. 

He is going to be somebody in this town.


	3. Chapter 3

Jim met Barbara almost immediately after landing stateside. At an airport, even.

He’d been on the way to visiting his mother when he bumped into a beautiful blonde with glittering feline eyes and, well, turns out her flight was delayed too. Three hours later, he was about ready to ask her to get on the plane with him to come meet the parents.

“Do you...ever think about meeting your soulmate?” she asked him.

“No.” He didn’t even miss a beat, smiling as he let himself get lost in her eyes. She smiles back, and it’s easy.

“You don’t think  ‘fate’  has somebody waiting for you somewhere out there?” she asks, tone still light, in genuine curiosity. 

Jim shrugs, and she laughs.

“I’m not about to let fate dictate my life, my choices,” Jim says. But when she tells him she’s headed for Gotham - home - he can’t help but smile. It’s where he’s headed next. They set a date for a week from now - that did feel fate.

.

Jim feels the ground drop out from beneath him when Barbara opens the door to reveal their guest as none other than his  soulmate .

Oswald Cobblepot, though he introduces himself as some made up name.

“I’ll show him out,” Jim bites out, keeping an eye on the supposed dead man, marching him back down the hall in a way all too reminiscent of the walk on the pier.

“I wanted-“ Oswald starts once they’re in the elevator, only to be cut off by Jim reaching across from him to jab the button for the ground floor.

“Not here,” Jim grits out, voice low. He has to bite his tongue, literally, to keep from saying any more. He can feel the nervous excitement of the man beside him, and the undercurrent of desperation, but he refuses to look at him. He feels guilty in more than one way, and oddly secretly relieved to know that Cobblepot is here for business, not a relationship.

He should have told Barbara.

No, he couldn’t have, if she wanted to know who the soulmate was, he’d just be piling lies on top of lies. They’d never made promises they’d tell each other if they ever found their soulmates, because it seemed a foregone conclusion it wouldn’t happen. It sounds so naive now. Jim has bigger things to worry about. Like her safety. Her life.

Fear, guilt, and anger reach a flashpoint and he slams the man against a wall as soon as they’re out of then light, in a dark corridor behind the building and under an overpass. 

“I told you never to come back here,” Jim says with undisguised fear as well as anger. How  dare Cobblepot come here and risk all their lives?

Even though Jim is the one who spared him, he can’t help but feel like  he’s the one indebted, in a way. Responsible. 

“I know. I know! I- I apologize. But I just wanted to speak with you,” Cobblepot wheedles. 

Jim feels a surge of  something in his chest. Is it protectiveness? Sympathy. The man look - deceptively - breakable. 

“No,” Jim grits out. “If Falcone finds out you’re alive, he’ll kill us both.”

Out of nowhere, Jim wonders whether things would be different between them if they had met under different circumstances. Cobblepot refuses to leave - and it wears on Jim’s patience.

“I should have killed you,” he says, not without regret. Then he wouldn’t be in such a position right now. Who is he kidding - it’d be the same, or worse. “I should put a bullet in your head right now!” 

“And you would have every right to do so,” he says to Jim’s surprise.

“But you won't, Jim Gordon,” Cobblepot calls after him.

“You're a good man. You may very well be the last good man in Gotham.”

And that’s why he wants to help. Well. Jim doesn’t want his help.

“No, but you need it,” Cobblepot says. Everyone has been lying to him - except Cobblepot, or so he says. Jim knows deep in his bones Cobblepot is a liar, and who knows what truths he’s already hidden from Jim in just the short time they’ve known each other? The man has a way with words and could be lying right now. 

But he trusts him. Instinctively. 

He has to work to pull him away, to bite down on those instincts. Cobblepot is a liar and scheming sycophant. 

This isn’t anything like any of the fairy tales he’s heard.

“Kill me now!” he insists, brandishing a broken bottle with shaking hands. “Or  trust me.”

One second he’s pleading, the next it’s a threat. Jim should have known better than to listen to a single word out of his mouth. 

Jim slaps the bottle from his hand, too tired, suddenly  so tired of it all. What was he thinking, coming back to Gotham. 

_ Gotham is my home. _

Jim’s too. And his father’s. But he had no idea corruption ran so deep - did Dad know? He must have, as the DA. But something Cobblepot says has his attention.

“This war, what are you talking about? Why will there be a war?”

He swears, the man is smug as he says, “Arkham, of course.”

For a moment, it’s a darkly alluring thought. The two of them against the world, working to stave off a sinister war on the verge of exploding. 

And that scares him more than the oncoming conflict - the idea that this is who he is. That when he looks at Cobblepot and his ruthless ambition it’s a mirror. There’s a reason they are soulmates, and this is it. This Machiavellian sense of purpose that Jim thought following orders in the military was supposed to have beaten out of him. 

But this is not who he is. He has to stand for something. The badge stands for something, and if he doesn’t stick to his principles he’s no better than the rest of them out there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to meeee about this shipppp that’s taken over my life
> 
> I’m @marcceh on tumblr


	4. Chapter 4

He should have known Barbara caught on quicker than she let on. 

Jim gets home at a decent hour for once, and she remarks on it immediately.

“You’re off early for a change,” Barbara says. He tries to play it off, but her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She’s been drinking. There’s a sadness to her that she wears like an old favorite sweater, but it’s not something Jim has really ever seen on her. She kisses him, but it’s tense.

“Long hours and late nights, Jim, they make me worry.”

He gives nothing away.

“About what?”

“All kinds of things,” Barbara says. Is this a fight? He really can’t tell.

“Just doing my job,” Jim says, still going for lightness.

“Are you?” It’s almost accusatory. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I think you have secrets from me,” Barbara says.

His memory flashes back to that pier, and the meeting under the overpass. Which secret? Jim’s holding too many to count. That he killed a man, or didn’t, that he’s under Falcone’s thumb now and Barbara’s life is forfeit if Jim doesn’t toe the line. That he’s found his soulmate and it isn’t her. 

Jim reaches out for Barbara but she’s already walked away.

“What do you want me to say, Barbara? Yeah, I have secrets,” Jim plays it safe. But Barbara’s smart - she turns around, and looks at him guilelessly.

“Who’s Oswald Cobblepot?” she asks.

Those three words leave him stricken. 

“How do you know that name?” His brain is still trying to catch up with what she could possibly mean.

“Doesn’t matter. Who is he?”

Think.  Think. There is no one who knows - besides him and Cobblepot - that they’re soulmates. And the two of them haven’t talked about it either, haven’t even given voice to the idea, so Jim can only assume it’s not in his favor to go around blabbing either. It must be about the murder - of  course it’s about the murder. 

“Montoya,” Jim says. It’s the only way Barbara could have known the name. He understands the MCU’s vendetta against the mobs, but this reeks of something personal. And it turns out it is. Barbara gets a little teary telling him about their past relationship, and Jim wonders if this is supposed to make him feel better about hiding a soulmate. 

She tells him  he’s the one she wants to spend the rest of her life with, and Jim feels deja vu at the fact that it’s the same protest he wanted to make himself just a moment ago.

Maybe fate had something to do with it after all.


	5. Chapter 5

Oswald had known he’d have a place in the mob ever since he was just a schoolboy. He’d been trudging home with his collar ripped and hair a mess and eyes burning with fury when saw two men come out of a liquor store, pockets conspicuously heavier than when they entered, with envelopes of cash.

“How did you know that about his daughter?” one says with a laugh to another. Oswald glances at the store keeper, who looks shaken. 

The second mobster smirks, looking all too self satisfied.

“Who do you think introduced her to that boy of hers?” he says. 

Interest piqued, Oswald follows them at a distance for another block. Not all stores required so much of a shaking down. In fact, most transactions went quite smoothly. Civil, and businesslike. One stop, not so much. The owner was taken out back with the most elaborate pleasantries, and then had the breath knocked out of him and the protests kicked and beaten out of him until he remembers he does in fact have the money they were asking for. Oswald covers his mouth to stifle a giggle. He’d been on the wrong side of that interaction himself, and learned well enough how to avoid it, for the most part. The trade off, however, was that all the other children outright ignored him. 

But it was the last stop that intrigued Oswald the most. There, the restaurant owner had even  thanked them. Thanked them profusely, and offered his best and blessings to the Don. The message was clear: there was an order and hierarchy in this world, and this man respected it. It was an order not unlike the medieval laws that ruled the playground. Oswald rubbed his neck, thinking of the stupid adults saying things would change once he was older. Oh, he had no doubt they would, but not because the world of adults was any different.

.

Oswald ends up endearing himself to an ambitious underboss by the name of Fish Mooney, when he offers her some information that would in turn endear her to Don Falcone. She takes him under her wing, and Oswald mistakenly assumes things are looking up.

Not quite. As the new guy on the bottom of the totem pole, with more brains than brawn, he is overlooked at every turn, shoved around behind Fish’s back, and he is tired of it. 

Oswald’s long learned to play to his strengths. Instead of pushing back, he ingratiated himself to everyone and anyone. He holds Fish’s umbrella for her and earns a most unbecoming nickname, as well as the permanent position of doing so. 

It’s time for a change.

Fish tells him he should find it an honor, and he tells Miss Mooney that oh yes, of course it is, he believes so as well. She gives him a fond-slash-exasperated look that is not enough, and he gives her a simpering smile as he plots to overthrow her. Oswald has the beginnings of a plan, but it never quite seems to be the right time.

Until  he shows up.

The honest policeman who’s first impression of Oswald is his beating a man with a baseball bat, eyes bright and vicious. He inquires after them of course, and it is just serendipity that the two detectives, one Bullock, Fish’s regular, are after the Wayne killer. 

Perfect.

Fish pulls some strings and has it planted on one Mario Pepper, a wife-beating man with a temper and no chance of paying off his debt. It’s meant to go down quickly, and restore law and order and the veneer of peace. He’s a hothead who’ll get himself shot, Fish says, meaning it won’t ever come to light he was framed because he won’t even have the breath to protest.

Oswald waits until it all plays out as she planned, then leaks it to MCU.

He needs the cops to have this information, because he needs the attention of Jim Gordon. They haven’t met yet, formally, but Oswald already knows he’s going to be a very important piece on the chessboard, and he intends to keep him around. Help him make it up the ranks, even, because when Oswald makes it to the top himself, it will be nice to have a friend around.

Fish reacts a little....quickly. Oswald had known what a risk it was, but didn’t realize it wouldn’t be one he couldn’t talk his way out of, the punishment so swift and brutal. Better his leg than his life, he supposes. Now to draw out the Don - this scheme went far above Fish’s pay grade, as much as he respected her. She had in fact taught him much he needed to know, and he would always love her for it, but for now he is quite content to hate her. 

And as much as she would hate to hear this: she is just bait. Oswald’s made a transgression big enough to draw out the head. of the table, and that is exactly what happens.

.

Detectives Gordon and Bullock are getting strung up to get carved up right about now, as Oswald sits shivering in the back locker half from the freezing temperatures and his rain soaked suit and half from fear for his life - and that’s when Don Falcone finally shows up.

“Cobblepot, is it?” Oswald hears, scrambling to his feet once he sees who it is. “Condemned men are honest men, I find.”

The next words out of his mouth feel like an absolution, the ones he’s waited interminably long to hear, what he’s jumped through all these hoops of fire for.

“What can you tell me before you go?” Don Falcone asks.

“Don Falcone,” Oswald is almost reverent with the name. “It is a great honor, sir.”

His voice shakes more from giddiness than the cold, but he is glad for the cold now.

“Indeed, I can tell a secret of great value to you if you grant me one last request,” Oswald says, clearheaded enough to bargain now, but thankful he has rehearsed it. “Give the job of killing me to James Gordon.” Who hopefully has yet to be carved up. Surely not.

Much hinges on the man’s ambition, Oswald is aware. But everyone has a weakness and right now his is the need to maintain power, without exerting much of it, because he’s wondering whether he still has anything to fight for. This indecision will be his undoing.

Oswald can see the amusement in his eye when he offer to snitch on Maroni for him. He’s thinking why not, because if the plan goes south, he claims innocence and the Maronis take care of Cobblepot anyway. 

“Deal,” Falcone says, offering up Gordon without further requests. “What is the valuable secret?”

“Oh, yes,” Oswald says. It’s a good one to reveal now too. “Fish Mooney and Nikolai the Russian only pretend to hate each other.”

He pauses for effect and amusement.

“They're lovers,” Oswald says. “And Fish is pushing Nikolai to take your place.”

“Is that so?” Falcone says. If he doesn’t believe Oswald yet, he will now.

“But only so Fish can take over from him,” Oswald finishes neatly.

“That _ is_ a good secret.”

.

Fortune favors the bold, and Oswald’s gamble is rewarded when the man he picked out turns to be the  one , in multiple ways. His soulmate. 

His little beating heart sings - how  well  everything is lining up. 

Maroni is easy to wind up, so easy to read. He wants to hit Falcone and Oswald has just the answer he needs at the ready. Of course, he has to reveal who he really is, but it was about time anyway. It would be risky, perhaps, if he didn’t have his secret weapon James Gordon in his back pocket. Oswald pleads with him to tell the truth, and the look on Jim’s face is enough to ensure Oswald he won’t be betrayed. It has the added benefit of putting Jim at odds with Maroni, which is sure to be of use later.

Meanwhile, Maroni’s lackey Frankie holds his head down to the slicer, and Oswald imagines him forcing Frankie’s head down against the blade instead. The man’s screams as he turns the machine on, and shaves layer after layer off his face until there’s nothing but bone. He pictures doing the same to Maroni. To Fish Mooney, who ruined his leg. She’d take it better than the other two, clawing her way out, Oswald bets. But that’s what the Old Guard is - a system where an idiot like Maroni can easily hold power while no one would ever let Fish have it despite her guile and cunning. What Oswald is planning is going to reduce the Old Guard’s foundation to rubble.

When Oswald makes his way back to Don Falcone, he tells him there is something important in Indian Hill, and that Nikolai has been taken care of in a hit Maroni was happy to take credit for - but if he would be so kind, as to spare Jim Gordon’s life despite his not following orders. After all, it gave them this golden opportunity.

Falcone gives him another amused look, as if ready to indulge his whims but only for now.

“I’ll allow it for you,” Falcone says, making it clear this is the last of his favors, calling in something so big.

“Thank you, Don Falcone,” Oswald says. “You won’t regret this, I assure you.”

.

Oswald trudges up to the familiar, village Art Deco apartment building he had grown up in, and thinks wryly, home sweet home. It was a quaint building, with a thick layer of Gotham grime covering the facade, and the apartments inside were half renovated, half crumbling pre-war. The upside was, the older units were also rent controlled. And it was here that he and his mother shared a small, “cozy” flat.

Oswald opens the door to her put-on admonishments of his fooling around with some supposed painted-faced woman of the night.

“I don’t even date!” Oswald huffs. Ridiculous woman. He loved her for it anyway.

He slumps onto the sofa and lets his mother fuss over him. It felt good to have at least one person in the world care. Mob business was such a cold one when you were still angling your way to the top.

“All I want is some respect,” Oswald complains to her. It really isn’t too much to ask - it is the least he deserves.

He lets her draw him a bath, and he is happy to soak is pain away.

“I'm worried for you,” his mother says. “So anxious you look.”

It’s routine - she frets, he abates he worries, careful to keep her at arms length in regards to his real “business.” Trust no one, she advises as per usual, and it has served him well all these years, has it not?

Except, now things are different. Oswald can’t help but adopt and almost near dreamy look, and self-satisfied little smile.

“I think I finally found somebody I can trust,” he confides in his mother. Just their little secret. He’s not ready to share Jim Gordon yet. “A policeman,” he tells her.

“Police?” she turns around, tone appalled. “The police are liars.”

“Mm-mm,” Oswald shakes his head firmly. “Not this one, Mom.”

“He's a real friend,” he insists.

“Hmph,” is all the response he’s getting from her. No matter.

“He'll help me come out right in the end,” Oswald says.

.

He is on a  crusade.

Jim Gordon is being reckless, but Oswald is secretly ecstatic at how ambitious the man is. And just moments after they crossed paths again, as he showed up to the precinct to reveal the murder was a ruse. Truly, they are a match made in heaven. 

It’s entirely possible now that Falcone does have a hint of regret at leaving him be, seeing as the detective has just tried to arrest him.

Oswald wants to reach out, and share his own plans. Jim wants to clean out the Old Guard of Gotham and perhaps he doesn’t realize yet it’s equally important who he puts in place anew - after all, nature abhors a vacuum - but this is where Oswald comes in.

It just isn’t the time yet.

It’s not ideal, being away from each other, Oswald thinks, but it is necessary. He admires Gordon’s restraint. He saw how he looked at him when he had him against the wall.

Ah well, absence makes the heart grow fonder.

.

“It's almost uncanny. Everything played out exactly as you said it would,” Falcone says, and it’s music to Oswald’s ears. Recognition where it’s due - finally.

“We got rid of Nikolai painlessly and Maroni thinks you're a wizard,” Falcone says. “You really do have a gift.”

Then he continues, “But I think we're making a mistake letting Gordon live. He's trouble.”

Oswald looks up at him with nothing but gratitude; instead of smug, he is subservient. Jim Gordon has just shown himself to be hapless in the face of a loved one’s life at stake, and really Don Falcone should not be feeling threatened at all. 

“Thank you so much for sparing him,” Oswald says, pushing gratitude into his voice.

“I appreciate the favor,” he adds, nodding to make another promise. “Don't worry. He'll see the light. One way or another, I guarantee it.”

Oswald has moves to make yet - he’s not just going to sit around waiting for some detective to save Gotham, save his home, soulmates or not. Jim’s a good man - and that only means the city will chew him up and spit him out - unless Oswald is there right by his side, in a position to lend a helping hand. He wasn’t lying about wanting to help him. How lucky his soulmate’s fate aligns with his own ambitions, his own destiny.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Jim chapter, and a lot of confusion for him about his feelings for Barbara.

Jim is about to be dragged off to prison when the doors of the GCDP fly open and the man he was supposed to have murdered greets the frenzied crowd of cops with a cheerful “Hello.”

Jim’s sure half the precinct’s jaw drops. Montoya’s sure as hell does. His might have too.

It is the oddest feeling Jim has that moment - he’s fearful, yes, and sure that Don Falcone will now have his head. But. 

Seeing Cobblepot standing backlit at the entrance in some sort of Lazarus moment - he also feels freed. 

Cat’s out of the bag now, and Jim’s ready to fight back, no holds barred.

.

“Barbara,” Jim says, out of breath in his rush to head out. Dammit, it was voicemail. “Listen to me. If you’re at home, you need to get out  right now.”

He closes his locker only to get socked in the face so hard he keels over.

“I thought we were friends,” Harvey says, pointing his gun at Jim.

“Harvey!” Jim raises his hand in what he hopes is a placating gesture, sliding back awkwardly on the floor. 

“Shut up! Game’s over,” Harvey says, clearly panicking. His half-assed plan is to kill Jim and bring his head to Falcone to beg for mercy. Clearly he has doubts.

“Listen to me,” Jim says, on his knees, hands up in the air like some perp. He keeps his voice calm, soothing - and hopefully persuasive. 

“I screwed up.” He starts with an apology. Harvey needs to hear it - after all, not killing Cobblepot was a betrayal of his trust too, technically. “But I have a plan to make things right.” One that’s kept him up at night since that day at the pier.

“Don’t kill me,  help me,” Jim says.

“You think I’m an idiot?” Harvey says, whatever else he wants to express is interrupted by two unis, who back off as Harvey yells at them to back away. Nevermind that two cops just turns their backs on a detective holding his partner at gunpoint in their own precinct - Jim takes the opportunity to knock the gun out of his hand and get up.

He  does in fact, have a plan. And it’s a good one.

“Help me,” Jim says once more, calmly now, standing above Harvey. “We don’t have to go out like this.”

Jim’s not afraid of dying, not afraid of putting himself in the crosshairs and Falcone’s men coming after him.

What he is afraid of is going down as a coward, betraying his own beliefs.

“You better hope you never see me again,” Harvey says. Not the answer he wanted. He thought Harvey was a better man than that. Jim sets his jaw, and walks away.

.

First thing’s first - Jim needs to get Barbara out of Gotham, somewhere Falcone’s men can’t get to her. Her parents’ maybe - that was out of the way, just a stone’s throw from Gotham, technically, but upstate seemed another world entirely. She’d be safe there.

Jim can tell something’s wrong the moment he gets out the elevator. He only hopes he’s not too late - and the unguarded door tells him as much.

They have Barbara, but it’s clear they won’t do anything (yet) because she’s a bargaining chip. They must have orders to bring him in alive, else he would’ve already been shot by now.

“Oh my god, Jim!” Her face contorts with the fear she must have been trying to hide the moment she sees him.

“It’s alright, it’s under control now,” Jim says. It is, and dare he say it, he’s a little glad to be facing down these thugs right now. Everything’s out in the open - just as it should be.

The little one has some sense, listening when Jim makes him disarm. But the big guy gets right in his face and threatens to kill ‘Blondie’ right after they’ve gutted him nice and slow. Jim’s done playing nice - he shoots the first guy and elbows the big mouth and they both go down.

“We’ve got to go,” he says. Barbara’s still in shock. “Barbara!”

.

He doesn’t understand what she’s resisting. Barbara is clearly scared out of her wits, seeming nothing like the vivacious woman he knows, but he pushes that aside for the moment knowing that if he can fix things the way he plans they can all go back to their lives together, and safe. 

She still wants to stay - to be with  him. He tells her he can’t do what he needs to knowing she is in harm’s way.

She’s not happy, but she goes - after he makes a promise to come with her when he’s done. They’d leave Gotham. 

“What if you don’t?” she asks.

“Don’t come back,” he tells her. He’ll be dead and who knows whether she’d still be safe. He owes her this bit of honesty, not even realizing how telling it really is.

.

Jim barely gets a wink of sleep but he’s forced himself to bed the night before anyway, gun by his side, knowing he’d need to be alert the next day.

The precinct is wired with tension when he steps in, every cop in the building either doing their best to ignore him or eyeing him like some sort of pariah. He can hear the sneers.

“Hey Alvarez,” Jim says, letting his voice carry. Let them watch. Maybe they’ll learn a thing or two. “You got any of those blank warrants that Judge Bam Bam signed?”

Jim has never been so happy to work with this broken system. He’ll use their own corruption to take them down.

Alvarez gives him a worried look, and Jim almost grins.

“Uh, yeah.” He hands them over and Jim heads back to his own desk.

It’s not long until the Captain appears, hissing in a low voice, “What the hell are you doing here?”

Jim gives her a wide-eyed look.

“I work here. It’s my shift. Where else should I be?” They didn’t  really think he was going to run, did they? Still, he enjoys upsetting the status quo.

“How about Alaska?” Essen asks. Then she sees what he’s writing. “Arrest warrants? For who?”

He gets dragged into her office when her eyes land on the half-written name.

“Mayor Aubrey James, Carmine Falcone, and their close associates,” Jim says. “On charges of conspiracy and perversion of justice in the Wayne case.”

They colluded to sweep the Waynes murder under the rug. They wanted him to kill a man and dirty his hands into compliance - well that secret is now out in the open for the taking, and he has every legal right to use them to guarantee these crooks’ arrest. Make an example out of them.

Essen rolls her eyes, then closes them as if she’s praying.

“Are you insane?” she asks. It’s fully rhetorical.

“No,” he says unabashedly. Then he half shrugs. “Maybe a little. Feels good.”

He smiles, and it’s a real one. Then he levels with the Captain as a man with no regrets.

“They’re gonna try and kill me anyway, might as well make them pay for it,” he says. His testimony is enough to indict them on a dozen things - which Essen tries to remind him won’t stand. No DA would prosecute. 

Jim is sick and tired of hearing these tried excuses.

“There’s not a cop or lawyer in this city who’ll help you,” she says. She adds regretfully, but with no room for argument, “I won’t help you.”

“I think there are plenty of people willing to help once they see it’s possible to fight back.” It’s a city of 8 million people. Jim can’t believe the whole of Gotham is fine with the way things are, breathing a sigh as the captain goes on a tirade.

“I have a family,” Essen says, disbelief and resignation both coloring her voice.

Right.

Which Jim doesn’t.

He doesn’t spare the moment to feel bad he’s forgotten about Barbara for a moment. There’s a reason he sent her away.

“I understand,” he finally says.

“Get out of town,” Essen insists in a low voice.

“This is my home. It was my father’s home. I’m not leaving,” Jim says. Were he a tad more arrogant he’d think it his birthright. Jim Gordon instead calls it responsibility. He is called to serve, and he is only doing what he believes is best for his city.

No sooner does he say that he can sense a change in the precinct - it’s all gone still. Then there is someone calling his name from beyond the glass.

Best to take it outside.

Jim opens the door of Essen’s office to find Falcone’s man Victor Zsasz standing on a desk, saying he’s there to take him in. There’s an irony in the situation he thinks they’re not aware of yet. 

Jim doesn’t.....feel taken by surprise at his fellow officer abandoning him, per se. Essen had warned him as much just a moment ago. They have families, loved ones. Some of them anyway. And Jim’s not worth sticking their neck out for.

It doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel disappointment roil through his gut though.

“Go, boss. Get out of here,” Jim tells Essen. “I can handle this.”

It feels like something out of a Western. The two of them, standing level with him up the stairs and Victor Zsasz on the table and it’s quickest to draw and shoot - nothing like war or his training, in all honesty, but Jim is perfectly capable of improvising.

He goes for his gun, knowing Victor won’t hesitate either. 

He’s brought two more - Jim fires before ducking down behind a desk for cover. A bullet pangs! off a lamp and ricochets, but he’s down just in time. 

The precinct is filled with the sound of metallic gunfire hitting the columns and breaking glass.

Shit. Three to one, he’s outnumbered. Perhaps he should’ve thought better of - perhaps nothing. He’s in the middle of a police building in the middle of the day, for god’s sake, he had no reason to believe he’d be facing off three hitmen alone. They’ve got him outnumbered on ammo too.

Jim bides his time, then fires off two shots - bam! bam! - and pushes a file cabinet along beside him as he tries to make a run for it.

His odds were bad - he gets shot in the torso as he sprints for the exit behind him. Nothing vital, but not good either. He’s not going to make it far if he doesn’t find - something. 

Jim spares a moment in the staircase to catch his breath, but only a moment because no doubt they’re hot on his heels. 

When he makes it to the parking lot - he stays. Better here where he has plenty of cover than trying to make it out.

Jim knows he can’t hide forever.

“Jim?”

He hears Zsasz’s creepy trademark whistle. If he wasn’t running for his life, he might pause to feel offended at being called out like a dog. 

“Hey!” 

Oh no.

It’s another cop, a uni who just happened to have the bad luck of stepping in on her patrol at the worst time. She sees the intruder is armed and reaches for - her gun? Radio? Doesn’t matter because Zsasz’s lackey shoots her and down she goes. Jim feels bad but there’s nothing he can do to help - he takes the opening for what it is and moves with everything he has toward the exit.

It’s not enough.

“There!” 

Two shots - one hits him in his back- 

And he is down.

Jim has the breath knocked out of him, the burn of the shot makes the hard concrete coming up to meet him nearly a nonissue. Is this how he’s going to die? Five minutes into being back at Gotham, having pissed off one crime boss and used as a pawn in a murder he promised he’d solve? Shit. 

He wonders if he really did have a death wish.

No, Zsasz is going to scoop him up like a sack of potatoes and dump him unceremoniously at Falcone’s feet like he was asked, and Jim will use his dying breaths to charge him with conspiracy. If he’s going out, he’s doing it with a fight on his lips to the very last breath.

A car comes before Zsasz does, the screeching of tires surprising Jim into looking up.

Run, he thinks, but can’t. He rolls to his side, and he can’t. The best he can do is a sort of crab crawl backwards on his elbows, as he tries to inch away.

He stares as he realizes the driver is Montoya, and she and her partner are his unlikely saviors, firing back at Zsasz’s people.

“You need a ride?” Allen asks, throwing open the back seat for him.

Jim gets in the car and off they speed.

Then he blacks out.

.

It’s freezing, and Jim pries his eyes open only to realize they’re too bleary to be of much use. His head is swimming and there’s a momentary reprieve of cold as a dark figure appears above him - above? He must be on the ground. 

He was...shot. Zsasz? Jim realizes it’s raining. Was raining. The cold on his face has stopped, and Oswald Cobblepot is standing over him, holding an umbrella. His expression is much to happy to be friendly for someone standing over a man who’s just been shot.

“I’m going to save you Jim, don’t worry,” he says in an annoyingly self-assured tone. “And then you’re going to help me save this city.”

“Wha-“ Jim heaves a breath, difficult with his new injury. “What the hell are you talking about?” 

The words come out as a cough, and Jim jerks awake.

“Wh-“

“Oh, you’re awake!” A young woman in a lab coat walks over and smiles at him. Jim follows her with his eyes. Oswald Cobblepot is nowhere to be found. Jim feels uneasy at the memory. He does not need Cobblepot’s help.

He is indoors, lying on a medical cot of some sort. 

“How are you feeling?” the woman (med student?) asks. 

“Terrible,” Jim says. He’s been shot twice, how is he supposed to feel?

She’d patched him up at Montoya and Allen’s request apparently, but now Jim’s lost a couple of hours. He needs to go. He only has so much time to get the drop on Aubrey James and Carmine Falcone, and then there’s Barbara.

Ah, Barbara.

Montoya makes an awkward apology to Jim and of course it had to do with Barbara. Jim accepts her apology though; he wants to keep things professional. 

As a...last will of sorts, Jim briefs Montoya and Allen on everything he knows, the conspiracy, his testimony, all centered on the Waynes killing. He introduces them to Bruce as a hand off, upset that he’s upset the boy, but determined to see this through. 

.

Jim goes home that night, bandaged and dosed with painkillers, and he arms up. He’ll have to be vigilant every second - Zsasz, for one, could show up again any moment. Soon he won’t have to worry, though. Jim is planning on paying Falcone a visit soon enough.

He’s abandoned, and he’s pissed.

Not having the Cobblepot murder hang over him, not having to worry about Barbara’s safety - well that just makes him free, and dangerous.

A knock at the door has him on alert.

“Jimbo! It’s me, open up.”

It’s Harvey. Jim perks up at the good news, before reminding himself it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Harvey is not alone, being coerced (he still cannot bring himself to picture Harvey voluntarily offering him up) to draw his partner out.

Jim opens the door unarmed - and blinks at the sight of Harvey drunk (not unexpected, all in all) with a curvy woman on his arm (why).

Don’t worry, he tells Jim, he’s not here to kill him.

“I figured I’m doomed anyhow, I might as well join the good guys,” Harvey said. Jim always knew (well, since meeting his former partner) that he’d come around. Harvey is one of the good guys.

“So what’s your play?” Harvey asks. 

To his credit he doesn’t lose it and walk out when Jim gives him his crazy answer.

“You sit down with a panel of chimpanzees and a bucket of crack and come up with that?” Harvey says.

Jim can’t help but smile. It might be the drugs.

“I figure out whatever happens we stir things up,” he says. “We might even make the papers.

He gives Harvey a toothy, shit eating grin.

“Oh yeah we’ll make the papers all right. We’ll be dead in time for the evening edition.”

.

There is, perhaps, an irony that Jim and Harvey walk into their first destination armed like mercenaries rather than “cops doing their jobs” as he’d rationalized it to Harvey last night.

Jim slams the car door shut and turns to the man beside him, Mayor Aubrey James with his half-car large macchiato in hand, and greets him.

“Jumping catfish - Gordon, you scared the bajeebers out of me,” the mayor says. “Nearly spilled my coffee.” That happens when you see a man with a military assault rifle get into your car.

Jim moves the gun into his other hand - it’s actually for later.

“Sorry,” Jim says, reaching into his jacket pocket. “Sir, you’re under arrest.”

The deadpan delivery doesn’t lose any of the seriousness. But that could be the gun.

“That’s not funny,” the mayor says, like the guilty chicken he knows he is. 

That’s when Harvey turns around in the driver’s seat, cap and all.

“Depends on where you’re sitting,” Harvey says, relishing the look on the mayor’s face. Jim can’t help but laugh. He drops the arrest warrant in the mayor’s lap. 

“Might want to take a look at this,” Jim tells him. 

.

The mayor is key to the next part of the plan: getting to Falcone.

The mobster is sitting in his living room, reading the newspaper like it’s a casual Sunday. He stands when he sees Mayor James enter, face pallid with dread. 

“Carmine Falcone, you’re under arrest,” Jim says, marching the mayor ahead of him. He shoves him aside when he gets to Falcone, putting his hands on his gun instead. Harvey ushers in the guards outside the room unarmed and at gunpoint.

Jim does not expect Falcone to come easy. He’s willing to put up a fight.

“This is a lawful arrest,” Jim says. “If you resist you will be shot.”

But he’s not expecting this.

Falcone smiles like he knows something.

“I envy you boys. Having nothing to lose must be liberating,” Falcone says. “Must feel pretty good.”

“Yes, it does,” Jim says with perfect honesty. He should’ve seen it coming then.

“Suppose for instance you had something to lose, what would you do then?” 

Jim’s brows furrow. He doesn’t know what Falcone is willing to do but it can’t be enough and it won’t be in time.

“Suppose I had a knife to Barbara Kean’s throat right now.”

The penny drops.

Jim tries to call his bluff, but there’s a sort of open honesty on Falcone’s face that makes Jim - doubt. No. But he can’t risk it.

“Prove you have her.”

“I can, but I won’t. I want you to believe me,” Falcone says.

This, this too is war. The mind games, the absolute crushing of the opponent’s spirit. This is something above Jim’s pay grade, something he may yet have to learn, but on the ground there’s always been one job he had in that respect: to hold onto his beliefs and stay the course. Falcone is asking him to offer up that belief of his own volition.

Is this what the city will demand of him, if he stays? Parts of his soul, piecemeal, until he’s gone and all that’s left is a Jim Gordon he doesn’t recognize.

But to protect and serve is part of who Jim Gordon is. He cannot, will not risk an innocent life for his vendetta.

There are other ways, an insistent voice knocks in his head, that same one he’s tried to push aside all week. 

Harvey is behind him, telling him Falcone is lying. Falcone is standing before him, swearing on his mother’s grave Barbara won’t get out of this unscathed.

Jim puts down the gun.

The change in power dynamic is immediate and jarring. Falcone offers them a seat, and there’s no refusing now. Harvey complains they’re now fish food, but Jim isn’t hearing much of it with the thudding of his heart and the blood rushing through his veins. Then the side door opens, and Barbara stumbles in, wrists tied, Victor Zsasz behind her. Jim studies her intently. She looks a wreck. Not physically so much as emotionally. Mentally. Miserable. That’s what Jim has done to her. 

“I’m sorry if she was mistreated a little,” Falcone says. “We needed to be sure she had nothing useful to tell her.”

Barbara goes to him, in a shaky voice repeating “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Jim repeats back, turning away from Falcone toward her in this private moment. There is a deep sinking feeling in the pit of his chest and he’s loath to name it. What has he done?

Falcone says they must die, but he will be sad for it.

“Gotham needs men like you. Strong men, men with principles,” he says. That glimmer of hope and false sincerity has Jim latching onto his words as he tells them with what sounds like regret, “I wish I could show you I’m not the enemy.”

In his shell shocked state, Jim knows he needs a change in worldview. He’s not sure he’s buying what Falcone is selling, but something has changed within him.

Falcone chides him like a father, strict but indulgent, with a son who was just trying to spread his wings.

“But today you listened. You trusted my word. That’s a good first step,” Falcone says. Jim tries to remember his training against enemy brainwashing. That has to be what this is.

“Perhaps there’s still hope for you,” Falcone says. Hope. That cinches it.

They realize they aren’t going to die - Barbara, Jim, and Harvey. Even Zsasz, who’d looked so excited to exact retribution for being bested at the precinct. 

“Get out of here before I change my mind,” Falcone says.

“Wait a minute,” Zsasz complains, silenced by Falcone immediately. 

“What’s the catch?” Jim says, despite Harvey’s protests. If there’s anything he’s learned, it’s Gotham’s about quid pro quo’s. It nearly got him arrested the last time, he won’t let himself get sunk into the swap even deeper this next time around. 

Falcone looks awfully impatient at that, almost as if he is willing to change his mind. Like he no longer wants to let them go but something - his honor? His word? Bullshit - is holding him back.

“The catch is, someday soon you’ll see I’m right,” he says, and doesn’t even balk at Jim’s clearly incredulous expression. 

  
He will never side with Falcone. Never.

.

The pain from his recent wounds doesn’t hit him until he’s back home - back at Barbara’s apartment, and everything that’s happened sinks in. He looks over at her only to find she’s on the verge of tears, apologies spilling out. Jim hobbles to her, wanting to quell her fears whatever they are.

He kisses her.

“I love you so much,” Barbara says. She does. She came back to beg for his life - and Falcone had granted it.

You have a good woman - isn’t that what Falcone had said? Why had Jim ever doubted her? How could he dare to, when he was the one who had caused her such pain. 


	7. Chapter 7

The news of his mistaken death travels quickly, and though Oswald has more enemies than friends in this town, he is happy to once again be walking under the sun in his own name. It’s better, even, now that he has Carbone’s thugs flanking his side, making him appear to the world as a man of some importance. 

Fish was outraged of course, and her hit caused that little scuffle Falcone had graciously agreed with Maroni to settle, just as Oswald had advised would happen. 

And really, now that Nikolai is out of the picture, Falcone may not comprehend it but Fish must understand that she is safe from Oswald’s treachery, should she not? Oswald decides to pay her a visit, gift in hand, and see if she will agree to look upon them as equals.

It’s what he deserves.

Should she be willing to overlook the past, Oswald thinks they can become friends, even good friends. He has long admired her, and while neither of them would ever be content serving beneath the other, would prefer to have her as an ally, limited be, if their partnership must. His feelings change almost as soon as she speaks, however. 

She’s a mercurial one, Fish, able to love and hate all within a single breath. She wields a natural charisma Oswald has long been unable to muster himself, and he cannot help but sometimes envy.

Oswald watches, eagerly, as she lifts the lid of the box, pleased at her appraisal of the brooch.

“My goodness,” she says with a gasp. “That is beautiful.”

Oswald smiles.

“Now I feel awful, I didn’t get you anything,” she says in that faux friendly tone of hers that has Oswald affecting a coy shake of the head in response. 

“Thank you,” Fish says, like it’s all Oswald ever wanted to hear.

Then she brings the thin ornamental blade of the accessory down in a quick jab - the sword was meant for pure decoration and the dullness of the blade that burns through Oswald’s hand, pinning it to the table, shows.

Oswald stares her with silent defiance, refusing to give her any inkling of even an ounce of pain. He holds his hand up to stay his men - this is just between the two of them.

At least - the pleasantries are over. Now they can really have it out, clear the air. 

Show how she really feels about Oswald’s tricking death.

He’d much rather see it coming, than have her play nice and slide a dagger through his ribs when he’s least expecting.

.

Oswald stops home, figures it will help clear his head. Fish needs to be handled, somehow, before she handles him. Now that the threat of Nikolai is no longer at risk of being exposed, Oswald needs something else. Another secret - there must be one, if Fish is not so easily quelled by the orders of Don Falcone. She must have something in her back pocket.

Oswald has his guys drag Timothy - his “replacement” - in for a nice little chat. 

So Fish has someone close to Falcone - that should be easy enough to use.

Liza is the newest addition to Falcone’s circle, and Oswald decides to pay her a visit at her apartment - while she’s out.

“Liza, Liza, what are you up to?” he muses, rifling through her things. He could care less if she suspects someone’s been by; all the better to put her on edge. Let her get nervous and slip up, that’ll be a laugh, and Oswald could use a laugh these days. For all his plan has been proceeding, moving up in the world hasn’t made him any less anxious. His position is still precarious.

What he needs is a link to Fish - it doesn’t have to be definitive proof to show Falcone, just something that gives Oswald peace of mind he is correct. The answer comes in the form of a scent - the scarf of the bed has a floral note that is oddly old fashioned for a girl of Liza’s age. He takes a deep breath into the scarf, and hobbles over to the vanity to check her perfume is one and the same. There is a base note of lilacs, and isn’t that just intriguing. 

Is Fish trying to elicit warm, maternal feelings, perhaps?

He hears footsteps, and rushes out of the apartment to hide on the stairs, scarf still in hand. He rushes down the stairs as the door closes, eager to pay Fish a visit.

Oswald is bubbling with laughter even as Fish makes her sour face at him. He was right. She smells of lilacs - not her usual perfume, and Oswald of all people would know. They’ve been meeting! Liza and Fish were just together, which means her plan is about to come to a head, and everything will come crashing down around her feet. 

Serves her right.

.

He pays Liza a visit the next day, and she gives him all the confirmation he needs. It’s music to his ears, really.

“Your secret’s safe with me,” he makes the point of saying. Her eyes are wet, and it’s easy to see she doesn’t want to be in this position, that she’s started to care for Falcone and believes he cares for her. Well he won’t, not when he finds out what she’s been up to. 

The secret comes at a very good time, too. Falcone calls him in for a meeting, and to Oswald’s deep discomfort it is about the recent hit on Falcone’s secret cash vault. 

“How did Maroni know where my money was?” Falcone says.

“Well, that’s a very good question,” Oswald says, unable to hide his jittery nerves. It’s the entirely wrong question - Maroni is one suspect, yes, but the hit does not align with Maroni’s M.O. This reeks of an inside job, with the failsafe bomb - why would your rival use a failsafe, hm? - but Oswald needs to make Falcone come to any realizations on his own.

Of course, while his mind is on the Maroni track, Oswald becomes suspect number one. The Liza secret will help absolve him, surely.

“Who was it if not Maroni, and how did they know about my money?” Falcone says. The door opens just then, and it’s Liza carrying a tray of tea service. She turns on her heel at the sight of Oswald. 

“You have a mole, obviously,” Oswald says, bitter that he’s again put into this position of being seen as the problem, rather than the solution. “Which is not Maroni’s forte. This is someone else. Someone artful. Someone close to you.”

“Your hatred of Fish makes me doubtful of anything you say against her,” Falcone says. 

That is not a clear no. Oswald promises to find the mole, and swears he will belong to Fish.

“Bring me proof,” Falcone says, dismissing him with a condescending pat of the cheek.

Gabriel, bless his heart, is all confusion as they drive back.

“Why not just tell him the truth? That Liza girl is the one who betrayed him,” Gabe says.

“Timing, Gabriel. Timing is everything, and Liza is a time bomb,” Oswald says with a big smile. Everything has gone as predicted, and his fearful display will make it look as if he has worked tirelessly to do Falcone’s dirty work when he finally names the mole he already has.

Falcone goes on to increase tariffs in his districts and that is sure to make his underlings restless. Fish is going to want to make a move.

And then Oswald is going to have her.


	8. Chapter 8

Martha and Thomas Wayne were soulmates. Everyone knew that.

Their story is another one of those fairy tales, a love story that sounds to good and clean to be true. They represented a different Gotham, a bright one, civilized and hopeful. Maybe that’s gone now.

.

“I wont let anyone hurt you,” Jim says. Barbara hasn’t been the same since - hell, even before she was taken by Zsasz. But he wants to reassure her. Show her it’s over now.

“How can you promise me that?”

-and that hurts.

Jim’s taken aback, and maybe Barbara doesn’t even notice his emotional retreat.

“Tell me there aren’t any monsters,” she presses on, changing tack.

But there are. The things he’s seen in this city .... and isn’t Jim one himself? 

He’s not sure anymore.

.

Jim refuses to let himself feel defeated, but what takes place is anger. So much anger. With Barbara. With himself. With every cop in this room who turned their backs on him. 

Harvey has to try to talk him down, and as much as Jim understand, he doesn’t know that he can just turn off the anger.

He has a right to be pissed.

Jim and Harvey pay a visit to the financial district, and he scoffs at all the warrior paraphernalia in Sionis’s office. The man works in investments and stocks, for crying out loud. 

“True killers are easy to spot,” Sionis says to him, and Jim has half a mind to cuff the guy then and there. 

“Yes they are,” Jim bites out. If he means Jim, so be it. But Sionis? He is a coward.

As much as he hates to admit it, maybe there is truth to Falcone’s words. The Balloon Man, the Goat, and now these office fight club killings - Gotham’s always had a dark side simmering below the surface. Families like the Waynes represented a decent, hopeful picture that kept that darkness at bay.

Even then, didn’t that dark side need someone to take the reins? Hold it in check from the other side, down below. Working in balance with the order of civilized society.

It’s a lot to think about.

The fight club, whatever it is, it’s fucking surreal. Jim’s insistence on clinging to the veneer of civilization is hanging by a thread - and the moment Sionis offers the men a million dollar bonus he knows it’s gone out the window; they’re out for blood now and Jim is equal parts thrilled and terrified at how easily he takes to the ruthless cagefight he’s thrown in. He tells himself he’s working off aggression, the anger at his fellow cops for abandoning him. Not because he enjoys the the bloodshed.

He has - something bigger to fight for.

That’s what war is. A clash of ideals. That’s the difference between a soldier, a warrior, and these playacting cowards like Sionis.

Jim does not enjoy this, not fighting for the sake of fighting. 

But he is not afraid to fight and go down fighting to his last breath for something bigger. For the fate of the city. 

If he doesn’t, who will?

And that - that is his true north. Jim’s not going to change.

.

When he gets home, there’s a note from Barbara.

“I’m nervous and needy and screwed up and I know that’s not what you need or want-“

He throws it down. Is it bad he feels it’s a relief to not have to - to put on an act for Barbara? He’s consumed with his mission right now and not what she needs either. The Wayne case shows the barest hint of a promise - an eyewitness - and Jim pursues it with everything he has. 

.

As a token of perhaps - acceptance, maybe, Montoya says she has a prosecutor to introduce him to. 

Jim can’t help but feel skeptical, on edge about the whole thing, despite her efforts to make amends. Harvey Dent is quite the character, and as Jim looks around the room - Dent, Montoya, Allen - he wonders if these are the fighters he’s been looking for. It’s clear these guys aren’t like the cops in the mob’s pocket and the corrupt City Hall. Is this what he’s been looking for? What he meant, when he told the Captain there were good people in Gotham, willing to stand up?

Jim doesn’t feel quite right, but he chalks that up to the lingering bitterness he’s been experiencing. No good letting his personal life bleed into his work. Because they do want the same thing, don’t they? As overeager as Dent may seem.

A better Gotham.

“No names,” Jim insists. Maybe this Lovecraft Dent is after has something to do with it, maybe he doesn’t. But Jim can’t move forward without prosecution. He needs someone like Dent in his corner. “Not mine. Not my witness. Just a story.”

“Just a story,” Dent agrees. They shake on it.

Selina Kyle is a wily stray, and Jim was hoping keeping her out of the city at the Wayne manor would both engender goodwill and bring Bruce some company. His heart goes out to the kid. He remembers what it was like to lose a parent. 

It blows up in his face spectacularly.

Jim goes down to Dent’s office to confirm the leak but he doesn’t even have time to get mad at him - and isn’t it his own fault, really, for trusting someone he didn’t know, trusting anyone at all in Gotham it seems like. He heads uptown to Lovecraft’s safe house as Dent suggests because what else is he supposed to do?

He’s there alright, and he just laughs at Jim. Pities him.

“You’re so deep in the maze you cant see over the wall!”

He knows that. He *knows* it. Jim is so tired.

Lovecraft says he has proof, says he has files. But before he can show them to Jim there’s someone at the door, and then he’s knocked out.

Jim wakes up to a dead Lovecraft and only more questions, more of this web of conspiracy that he can’t make heads or tails of.

What a fucking mess.

The mayor chalks it up to suicide, and Dent hangs him out to dry.

Jim isn’t surprised at all. 

The only thing he can do now is stay the course - which means even when they take away his badge and reassign him to security at Arkham, he refuses to bat an eye.

“So quit!” Harvey says.

“That’s what they want me to do,” Jim says defiantly, and he is not going to give them the pleasure.

He’s still mad.

But the anger is slowly giving way to despair.

“I want you to come back,” Jim says. It’s voicemail - again. Barbara isn’t taking any of his calls. “I need you to come back.”

His voice shakes.

“I dont have anything without you.” The truth.

“And I love you.” An afterthought.

It’s not enough to fight the war. Jim needs something to come home to, something to ground him, something to remind him what he’s fighting for. 

Otherwise he’s afraid he’s going to lose hope.

There’s a knock at the door and his heart leaps, thinking Barbara’s only missed his call because she was on her way up, and she’s coming home.

If he wasn’t so willfully blind, he’d remember she had her keys, she wouldn’t be knocking. When Jim opens the door, it’s not Barbara at all. The glittering eyes send warmth throughout him nonetheless.

It’s Oswald Cobblepot.


	9. Chapter 9

“Hello James.”

Jim finds himself letting Oswald Cobblepot in all too easily. He catches himself, but the man’s already made his way past the foyer, and Jim just closes the door.

He turns, looking oddly...ethereal with the backdrop of downtown Gotham glittering behind him. A small frown on his face appears as Cobblepot comes to a very different conclusion about the sight before him. Jim looks a wreck. 

“I heard they’ve tried getting rid of you, my friend,” Cobblepot says. He chuckles. “They’ll have to try a lot harder than that.”

Jim gives him a wry smile, not sure how to talk to Cobblepot.

“Not sure how long I can take interviewing the poor loonies before I go stir crazy myself,” Jim says, not missing the way Cobblepot’s eyes sharpen at that.

“I wish I could lend my assistance,” he murmurs, “but I find myself presently in a predicament. All in due time, Jim, I assure you.”

Jim grimaces a little, not sure he wants Cobblepot’s assistance, whatever that may be. But Cobblepot’s already brightened.

“But you’re working on a case,” he says with an optimistic tone. “Arkham is important. I’m sure you’ll be able to leverage it to better your position.”

“I’m - just doing my job, I’m not trying to leverage anything-“ Jim cuts off. “Why are you here?”

Jim notices then a ring of purple around Cobblepot’s eye, but faint, as if he’s covered it with makeup. His freckles are lighter for it as well. There’s a hand on his arm now, and when did Cobblepot get so close?

“I wanted to see you.”

Cobblepot leans in and brushes his lips against Jim’s and it feels like the most natural thing in the world to raise his hand to the nape of the man’s neck. He threads his fingers through his dark hair, leaning into the kiss.

It’s then that he realizes his eyes have closed - but when he opens them, they land on the side table under the mirror in the foyer. He sees himself bracketing the smaller man, and beneath that reflection a framed photo. Of Jim. And Barbara.

He pushes Cobblepot away.

“I can’t.” It comes out as a gasp. 

Whatever reaction Cobblepot was expecting, it wasn’t this. He looks stricken. Then he clears his throat, adjust his collar, and he leaves. 

.

Jack Gruber goes missing, taking two Arkham inmates with him, and Jim refuses to stay put. He puts on his suit, leaving his uniform in his closet, and heads to the precinct in time for the briefing.

It’s not until he gets there that he realizes he’s doing exactly as Cobblepot said he should. He pushes the thought aside, along with the memory of soft lips and a scent so unlike Barbara’s shampoo.

“Jim, you’re out of your jurisdiction,” Essen says when she sees him.

“Captain,” Jim insists. “This is my case.”

It’s - not about leverage. He needs to see this through.

But Harvey - of all people - grabs him by the shoulder and shoves him out.

“You need to get out of here before the commissioner sees you,” he says, forcibly pushing Jim along.

“Why?”

“Because he holds you responsible for all this and- oh fudge.”

Speak of the devil.

Rather than hide, Jim steps up to address the man.

“Why are you here, commissioner?” Jim says. His day is looking up already. 

“Excuse me?”

“This is the first time I’ve seen you down here with the rank and file. You must be desperate,” Jim says. He doesn’t know what it is Commissioner Loeb knows and won’t disclose - hell maybe he really is just scared of the bad press - but either way, a golden opportunity has just been handed to him and Jim isn’t letting it slip by. 

He promises to deliver the killer in 24 hours, and by the time he leaves the captain’s office he’s smiling like he hasn’t in a long time.

.

Jim crosses paths with Cobblepot soon after that, except the man is passed out from being electrocuted and mumbling something about Falcone. Not good - but not his problem.

“Help me do the right thing, Don Maroni,” Jim says. “Let me place you in protective custody.”

“You mean, let you use me as bait,” Maroni says. Jim shrugs, and doesn’t deny it. It’s mutually beneficial, and Maroni sees this truth as well. 

Dr. Thompkins from the asylum had brought him a doll - one in the likeness of Maroni, which Gruber - actually Buchinsky - had made to curse. Sloppy, but perhaps being locked up with the criminally insane gave him too much time to stew and dream of revenge. 

It works, they draw Buchinsky out, and Jim finds himself fighting to protect, of all people a mob boss. Because that’s what the law is, it’s what prevents civilization from chaos, and people taking justice into their own hands exacting revenge until the whole world is blind.

It’s satisfying.

They cuff Buchinsky and then Jim is right up there with Loeb as the press takes their photos. It feels good to have Loeb smile through giving him back his badge and congratulating him in front of the reporters.

“I’m done being careful,” Jim tells Harvey.

.

Oswald is filled with low simmering rage. Such a day he’s had. 

First he goes too far trying to exert power - but can he be blamed? He needed to feel for himself the limits of where he stood. But Maroni’s harsh reminder that he was still a servant - it’s everything Oswald has been trying to get away from.

And then there was Jim’s rejection. Jim, who is still living in his ex-girlfriend’s place. 

He wants to laugh.

It’s cathartic when he finally gets to Don Falcone’s, and reveals the secret he’s been holding like a small, injured bird he’d nursed, and opens his hand to watch it fly. 

He watches as the man’s face turns hard at the revelation of Liza. Even the blow doesn’t faze him. 

“You’re wrong,” Falcone says.

“When have I been wrong?” Oswald retorts. He’ll find out soon enough, and then Oswald will get his due. 

Timing is everything - and the look on Fish’s face when she realized it was he who did this to her is so very, very sweet.


	10. Chapter 10

It feels good to have his badge back. It feels good to have his _work_ back - the nonstop grind has done wonders for keeping his mind off of his personal life, and he is more than happy to answer the call for an early morning body found. 

The fact that Barbara left him, and how quickly he fell into Oswald Cobblepot’s arms after that. He really shouldn’t. Harvey’s upset Fish has gone missing, and the parallel between the relationships doesn’t escape him. Cobblepot likely had something to do with it, all that scheming. Jim feels guilty on several levels.

He looked...different that night he came to see him. The time on the pier wasn’t much different from the first time, the man bloodied, bruised, and begging. Pale, freckled skin flushed with excitement, blood coming to the surface, overeager. No, he’s since taken pains to control himself, cultivate an image that he’s moving up in the world. Jim supposes he is. He heard Falcone and Maroni got into a spat because of the snitch. And now with Fish Mooney missing it’s hard not to imagine he had something to do with usurping her.

He’s changed (or has this version always been hiding under his skin?). So has Jim.

They arrive at a warehouse where he meets Detective Flass from Narcotics - vic was a drug dealer, Flass explains, but no drugs on him. Probably a deal gone bad.

Except Jim finds a stash hidden in the man’s shoe after just a quick glance. Surely a narcotics detective would have thought to check. Something is off, and that bad feeling comes to bear when the night janitor Leon Winkler dies in their own precinct before he can give his statement or work with the sketch artist.

Killed with the same weapon.

An inside job.

.

Jim is livid as Harvey sits him down in a diner to give him the lay of the land. 

There is in this town, apparently, a protected class of criminals, and that includes dirty cops. Cops who’ve taken on the businesses of criminal rings themselves and get off scot free. For the last few years, apparently, the narcotics division of the GCPD has veritably taken over the operations of drug rings themselves. 

“Commissioner gets a piece too,” Harvey adds, and Jim grinds his teeth. He wheedles Harvey into calling his contacts to find out more. Harvey knows they’re fighting the good fight, and God bless his soul for letting Jim drag him deeper and deeper into the grave they’ve dug for themselves.

He keeps finding out the corruption runs deeper than he thought, veins in the otherwise white marble, a cancer to cut out. No, there are good people here, and people who want to be on the right side, if only someone else would stand up first.

And Jim’s willing to be on the front lines for that, regardless of the sacrifice (if he has nothing left for him, he will go out fighting, he’s already made that promise). And for those who want to be on the wrong side? They just need to be shown the good people of Gotham city won’t stand for that. 

By the time they make it to one of the stash houses Harvey has on good faith is a real address, Jim’s a bit wound up. His eyes light up seeing Delaware, that lowlife who has the nerve to call himself a cop when he’s out there sneaking around to push drug deals and coverups. There’s all the evidence they need in this place to bring to light Littlefield’s murder, and Winkler’s as well. 

An arrest, a conviction, and a public trial - Jim may be on a vendetta but he is on the side of the law, the institution put into place so that the people can have justice. If their faith in the law falls, the city gets handed over to crooks like Delaware.

He gets into a fistfight, hotheaded as he is at the moment, but that all comes to a halt when Delaware pulls out a warrant. Signed by good old Judge Bam Bam. To clear their own stash house of evidence of a crime.

There are more layers of irony than Jim can stomach. He’s dealt a final blow when he gets back to the precinct and gets the news that Winkler’s death was ruled a _suicide_. 

Everyone knows that’s bullshit.

.

Jim misses being touched.

In the quiet alleyway on his walk his memory brings to minds whispers of fingers in his hair, and the press of soft lips to the corner of his mouth. He shakes his head - memories of Barbara mixing with that clandestine meeting with Cobblepot. 

Who he’s going to see now.

They haven’t talked about it, them being soulmates. Jim isn’t sure how people go about that sort of thing, and would be more than happy to sweep it under the rug. But with the way he’s caught the other man looking at him, he’s not sure _Cobblepot_ will be content to do the same. 

Jim reminds himself that despite the dark road he took here, he’s not really doing anything illicit. 

Cops meet with informants all the time. Any detective worth his salt has them. It doesn’t grant them complete impunity; Jim hasn’t promised Cobblepot anything. 

The cold air does less to help clear his mind than Jim had hoped for. He’s determined to sort out what it is he wants from Cobblepot before he gets to the club. He debates the ethics of a relationship and wonders whether the allegiances fate chooses trump the ones you choose on your own. Why in the world had he been matched with the mob snitch in the first place? He regrets now, not taking those silly, what he thought of at the time as pseudo-science, courses back in high school that talked all about soulmates. Was it based on compatibility? Or the roles each would play in each other’s lives?

A favor - that’s what Jim is asking for. 

_ ‘I’ll owe you a favor.’ _

Jim shudders at the memory of Harvey promising the gangster Fish Mooney a favor. Is that what he’s here to do? How easily he trades his soul in this town. 

What terrible things is he willing to do, to clean Gotham up?

Jim steps into the club with no small amount of trepidation. He’d heard the man would be at Fish Mooney’s but he hadn’t expected party hats and dancing.

It’s a bit...in poor taste, even he can admit. He knows neither of them personally, and can’t say for sure whether Fish Mooney or Oswald Cobblepot would do better for this part of town. And it’s moot anyway, because the stranglehold crime families have on local neighborhoods is something that needs to end.

“Aren’t you celebrating a bit early?” Jim asks in lieu of a greeting. 

“Jim!” He can’t help brightening visibly, standing as if Jim was some long-awaited guest. Before he can come closer, or beckon him to sit, a tipsy bohemian woman twirls up to Jim, hand extended in coquettish expectation. 

Jim takes it, off-footed for a moment, unsure of what to do. Cobblepot is no help; and now he has twin starry-eyed gazes staring up at him. 

“Mrs. Kapelput,” he greets awkwardly, before kissing her hand as she makes no move to retreat until he’s acted. So Cobblepot has told her about him. He told his mother about Jim Gordon.

With a belated moment of panic, Jim wonders who else he’s told about finding his soulmate. But, surely a person trying to work their way up in the mob wouldn’t brag about ties to the police. Having your soul linked to a detective wasn’t exactly the same as having a couple of cops in the precinct on your payroll. 

Cobblepot offers champagne, which Jim tries to decline, and pulls him down to sit. He’s jumpy and nervous as if he can still feel the aftershocks of that touch on the pier and he takes a seat beside Jim wiping his hands on the knees of his trousers as if he was on a first date.

Jim almost feels bad to be asking what he’s asking for - but Flass is too well protected.

He can’t do this alone.

He asks - he tries to - for the bare minimum. Surely he must know of someone who knows something that could be turned up as evidence. Jim just needs a hint. He doesn’t want planted evidence, or, worse, a shoot out and body count.

“Of course,” Cobblepot agrees breathily, hands open, nodding profusely. “Nobody gets hurt.“

Jim breathes a too-loud sigh of relief.

He asks what he owes with a thudding heart and Cobblepot just gives him a fond look as he says, “friends don’t owe friends silly.” When he moves to take Jim’s hand...Jim lets him, doubt still churning away under his rib cage. He can feel the whispers of Cobblepots hopes and emotions through the touch. He pulls back his hand. Jim can’t tell if he’s sincere, or knows just what it is that gets under Jim’s skin. As lonely as he is, he listens to those instincts that scream at him to stay away. Cobblepot may look harmless, but he is without a doubt a predator.

Cobblepot seems to take the end of business discussions to mean the beginning of - something else. But Jim is rattled. He hastily excuses himself, and heads back to the precinct to bury himself in work.

.

The evidence comes sooner than Jim expected, and not in the form he expected either.

He looks up to find the muscle Cobblepot had hired - the one at the club - holding out a plastic bag to him. With an ice pick. Still covered with the victim’s blood. 

The murder weapon on a silver platter.

Gabe tells him there’ll be prints too. Delaware was happy to hand it over to save his own skin, kept it for this very purpose even though Flass had tasked him with getting rid of all evidence.

Jim, too relieved they’ll make the collar, that he’ll keep his promise, takes the offering without giving too much thought to what Gabe must have meant. What kind of shaking down Delaware would’ve gotten to make him give that up, when he had been so confident a day before.

It’s not until after they make the arrest, with the Cap doing the honors, after they’d paraded Flass through the precinct, that reality hits hard.

On a quiet dark road not unlike the one Jim walked to clear his mind, Delaware comes on his knees begging for absolution.

Jim’s confused at first - he was the one who handed over the evidence. Flass is locked up now. It’s over.

Then he talks about his wife, and his kids, and those wounds on his face sure weren’t there the last time Jim saw him.

It’s like being doused with an ice-cold bucket of water, Jim’s realizations.

Jim does not want to be party to that. It’s everything he’s working to undo in this god-forsaken town.

But most of all, he is furious with himself, for believing he could trust someone. First Dent, and now Cobblepot. He’s such a fool. He should have learned his lesson.

He resolves to stay away now, no matter that he is incredibly lonely. If that’s the price he has to pay to get things done in Gotham, he’s ready to pay it now.

The bad news comes in a one-two punch and Jim’s resolve is only hardened when he runs into Selina Kyle, and she tells him she lied about being an eye-witness to the Waynes murder to get out of juvie. She’s a hard one to read, but what Jim can tell is that she’s scared - and not just for herself.

He makes a visit to Wayne Manor and advises them not to put too much stake into what she said - it’s not unusual for a witness to reneg, he’s seen it often enough. And even if she’s lying, he can find other leads. Jim Gordon intends to close this case - he made a promise.

“I release you from your promise,” the little Wayne heir says. Bruce’s words, however well-intended, are like a knife to the gut. He’s firing Jim, effectively. 

He feels like he has so little to fight for now.

But that’s the price he promised he’d pay.

.

Promises to yourself are harder to keep, Jim supposes, if you’re as weak as he is. Their next case is as crazy as they come, the victims tortured with their own phobias before their adrenal glands are cut out.

In a moment of weakness, he fishes out that number of the doctor he met back in Arkham and gives her a call

“Our medical examiner is kind of a clown,” he says with an awkward smile, and when her face falls he caves too. He’d told himself he wasn’t sure he meant it as one, but they’re both clearly dressed for a date. He comes clean. He kisses her. 

“Do you believe in soulmates?” she asks him. He supposes it’s the sort of thing people talk about on first dates, but it startles Jim nonetheless. 

“Or well,” she continues, with a mea culpa nod, “of course they’re real, that’s not what I meant by believe, just - true love?” Her voice climbs with something like tempered sarcasm and Jim has to laugh too. He feels the same. 

Soulmates aren’t rare to the point of impossibility - between a quarter and a third of the world’s population find their matches within a lifetime. Enough that everyone knows at least a handful of people who are happily matched. There are the bad stories too, the ones that don’t end happily - he’s a cop, he’s seen them - but for the most part they’re a phenomenon looked at through rose-colored glasses, seen as one of the few good things in this wretched world.

Jim is glad Lee continues on without waiting for an answer he doesn’t know how to give.

“I mean, I have nothing against them, just that I believe that love is something you should work for,” Lee says.

“I agree,” Jim says. She tells him about how her parents met, how they aren’t soulmates but high school sweethearts whose love hasn’t waned in the decades following nonetheless, before laughing - charmingly, she’s so charming - and backtracking about how she must seem so forward for a first date. 

Jim doesn’t mind. High school sweethearts, marriage, and a family - it all sounds so comfortingly familiar right now.

.

His romance with Lee Thompkins is...short lived.

She’s helpful on the case he used as a pretense to ask her out to dinner - the killer was harvesting their fear glands at their height.

“Only in Gotham,” she quips. Sounds about right.

Jim has every intention of asking her out again, with no work pretense this time, just the two of them and a break from this crazy world. Except, she’d taken him up on the job lead after all. Their medical examiner turned out to be not (just) negligent but a fraud of the worst kind, harvesting body parts to sell on the black market. There’s a job opening immediately, and Lee is happy to leave Arkham.

Jim’s not sure he wants to try to carry out a workplace romance. If anything, he’s learned work and personal life shouldn’t - can’t - mix. 

She tells him to kiss her, and - and he lets her, he deepens the kiss even though they’re in the middle of the precinct, and about 50 cops can see them. The smile she gives him afterwards is worth it.

.

Oswald Cobblepot must have no sense of self preservation, with how often he’s waltzing right into the police precinct or mafia dens alike. Jim spots him immediately on his return and the man lights up not unlike the way he did that night at the club.

There’s an expression on his face Jim refuses to name because it is patently preposterous that he could have such feelings, not when they hardly know each other, when they’ve barely talked beyond the basic necessities, while thrown into situations of life or death.

Then again, perhaps Jim only deserves such sentiments from someone with such a blackened heart.

Jim holds tight to his doubts and clamps down on the rise of any feelings that well up as Cobblepot presses that freshly printed invitation into his hand. The sincerity of the touch overwhelms him. 

And the moment he leaves - Jim throws it away without even looking at it.

He heads back up past the bullpen to confer with Harvey about their serial killer case, but it looks like they’re out of leads.

“What about your pal Penguin?” Harvey asks. “Helped us with Flass.”

“No,” Jim is emphatic.

“Worth a try,” Harvey presses.

“No it’s not!” It comes out harsher than he wants; Jim is still rattled. But Harvey drops the matter.

Jim doesn’t go to Cobblepot, and he doesn’t look at whatever the invitation is for. 

Instead, they do some good old fashioned detective work - boots on the ground, questioning those around potential suspects, and poring over files and clippings.

Finally, Jim finds something. There’s a newspaper article about the night Gerald Crane’s wife died. 

“It was a house fire, not a car crash,” Jim says aloud as he reads. Harvey leans over to skim the article as well. Mrs. Crane had been upstairs, the husband and son downstairs when the fire happened. He made it out - she didn’t.

“She was his soulmate,” Harvey adds. “He didn’t go back for her. And he went mad.”

Jim purses his lips.

“There’s the address for their old house - do you think...”

The address turns out to be the right lead - but it’s too late. He’s too far gone, and they hadn’t gotten there in time to save the son.

Jim takes the shot and Gerald Crane goes down; medics come to take his son Jonathan away, but doctors tell Jim the serum’s already taken effect and there’s no sign of it being something that can wear off. The stress to his systems was too much; there is nothing the doctors can do.

They’ll have to send him to Arkham.

So. Jim isn’t exactly in the best of head spaces when Lee accosts him in the doorway of the examination room and makes another quip about “cops having feelings.” Of course he does, but that isn’t the point, and - Jim cuts off his explanation, seeing Ed Nygma lurking in the doorway. He’s not subtle about it, and ducks his head with his customary pasted-on smile as he scampers off once he’s caught.

Jim heads home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a lot of Feelings about these two


	11. Chapter 11

Ed ticks another box, another test that’s come up null. No matter. In the realm of scientific inquiry, failure is just another answer, one more rung on the ladder to success. 

He pulls the recorder mic closer to dictate the results for his record. 

“Victim number 42 shows similar results across the board - par for the course for the unmatched,” Ed says. He taps the chart - he’s been testing blood, DNA from multiple samples, and looking for patterns in fingerprinting, and still has come up empty. 

“Is it too much to ask of Gotham’s criminals to murder a few matched souls?” he jokes. Half jokes.

A few months ago, Ed had found in a medical journal an article espousing yet another soulmate-gene theory. 

The science on soulmates was tenuous at best - matches were seen more as a blessing and a gift rather than something to be pinned down and glared at through a microscope.

Still, times are changing. There have been people poking into the technical fabric of soulmate biology for at least decades, and in today’s modern day and age they are coming out of the woodwork. Unfortunately, theories old and new have by and large been disproven. And if anything, that uncertainty, combined with the downward trend of the numbers of people finding their soulmate in recent decades has increased scientific inquiry.

This particular paper latched onto the theory that matched DNA had subtle changes from the subject’s DNA prior to matching - a popular theory but lacking accuracy due to shoddy DNA technology - and suggested that there should be an individual gene marker that could differentiate match DNA - anyone’s - from unmatched DNA. 

Interesting theory, though not one Ed was having any luck replicating. More interesting, perhaps, was the question left at the end of the paper: was it possible that some people had no match out there in the world, and that a lack of this specific gene could identify these poor souls?

It nagged at Ed, Ed who’d dreamt, fantasized, all his life about who his soulmate would be, how their first meeting would go, and their life together.

While most children at his school wore the thin gloves as was typical of the time, Ed found increasingly creative ways to “forget” his gloves. 

Times were changing, though, and most people were perfectly comfortable shaking Ed’s bare hand upon introduction, whether they themselves wore gloves or not.

But not Ms. Kringle.

Oh, no. Kristen Kringle wore those cream colored, elbow-length gloves day in and day out no matter what. Said they helped prevent paper cuts and laughed it off if anyone happened to comment. Ed had watched, carefully, and had never glimpsed her without them (though he once saw her hastily finish pulling them on after exiting the ladies room). 

It infuriated Ed to no end, but one week ago he had a stroke of luck. Ms. Kringle had handed over a file he requested, and inside he found a stray strand of auburn hair.

He rushed to the lab to map the DNA, and had since been meticulously combing through his and hers, side by side, unsure what exactly he was looking for.

This, coupled with the looming, unanswered question, nagged at him.

He was sure she was - Ms. Kringle  _ had _ to be his match.

But, what if she wasn’t?

Worse, what if those taunts he’d heard all his life were actually true? That Edward Nygma had no match.

He had to know.


	12. Chapter 12

Oswald has always wanted a candlelit romance, full of roses, poetry, everything. 

It’s not as if a clandestine, star-crossed affair doesn’t have its appeal. Just, perhaps moreso in books than in practicality.

The problem is, Oswald doesn’t have much experience besides books. Manipulating people into distraction as he steals their secrets is one thing. Maneuvering the whole of events to have someone fall in love with him - well, truth be told, that’s what he thought the bond was for.

Jim Gordon has been obstinately resistant to the bond, and up until a few nights ago Oswald had thought it was on purpose. That he’d trained himself to put up a wall against the emotional input of his mate the way Oswald has. That he notices the feelers Oswald is putting out and doubles down with even greater resolve.

Now he thinks Jim Gordon isn’t even aware he’s doing it - that he is guarded, inept at emotions, and his confusion about his wants written all over his face is honest and real.

The enlightening little experience at the club - his club - has him thinking things are finally turning up, that fate has begun to reward him - then Fish turns up.

It’s jarring, when she steps in, flanked by her most loyal servant Butch Gilzean, when she should have been dead. Oswald is on stage, behind the microphone, and has been blatantly celebrating as Jim rightfully deduced - prematurely.

If he wasn’t so fearful for his life he might have room to feel humiliated. 

As it is, he grovels as if it were second nature and bends down low to kiss her shoe. He begs. He tries to appeal to her practical nature. It’s not enough, of course. She beats him with a bat because that’s what happens to snitches, except that’s not what he is, is he? He’s not just a snitch. Fear turns to spite turns to hysterical laughter as she bristles at his extension of an invitation to work together and she snarls,

“I made you.” That’s a lie! “You’re a nobody.”

Oswald has heard that more times than he cares to count and suddenly he is livid. A triumphant laugh bubbles out of him not because he knows his words will win him out of this one, but because he knows how much this will cut her. Clever Fish. Mama Fish. To realize with certainty one of the fledglings she brought in has outsmarted her, pushed her out.

“Well, this nobody still outfoxed you at every turn!” 

The betrayal on her face when he reveals he was working for Falcone the whole time is good. If hers is going to be the last face he sees, that expression is a good one.

It isn’t though, because Zsasz shows up next to this little soiree - the club is a popular one after all! - and Oswald laughs and laughs and laughs.

Later he tells Maroni he claimed the club - in his name, of course.

He’s tired of dealing with the ape, but needs must, and no one knows about his allegiance to Falcone yet. Save Fish, but she’s not talking after Victor Zsasz has gotten to her. That man’s predilections frighten even him, though he knows Falcone has him on a rather tight leash.

But the sudden business upstate is suspicious at best, and those suspicions are quickly confirmed. And then! Cherry on top, he reveals the root of his actions is Fish. Of course. That wily creature somehow got away after Zsasz delivered her to - wherever - and had the sense to reveal his secret to her advantage. 

Oswald goes for the gun - to no avail - he gets knocked out after discovering Maroni’s trick - a clever one too, played on Oswald’s scheming nature. 

He wakes up in a car - not just a car, but one stuck in the maw of a giant mechanical beast poised to strangle him in its jaws. 

There is No. Way. He is dying in a car. Upstate! After everything he’s been through!!

He scrambles for his phone.

.

Hellish as recent events have been, Oswald is rewarded for his ingenuity when his plea for protection to Don Falcone results in something even greater. He’s given the club - openly. 

“Your days of sneaking around are over,” Falcone tells him, and Oswald stands a little taller. “You’re with me now. Publicly.”

Oswald is over the moon. He renovates. He has invitations printed. And when the first one comes back, still warm from the printers - Jim comes to mind immediately. Yes, he must invite Jim. He holds on tight to that first invitation, because he plans to hand deliver it himself.

This time of day, Jim will be at the precinct, of course. Unfortunately, this theory proves untrue when Oswald visits Jim’s place of work and sees his desk empty. An inquiry at the top desk lets him know that the good detective must be out following a lead. Oswald shakes off an annoying follower, and then decides he shall wait for Jim’s return rather than risk missing him again.

Oswald feels his presence a moment before he turns and spots him, a pleased smile spreading across his face at how quickly Jim noticed him as well, dropping what he’s doing to come over immediately.

Things are going well for Oswald, and he wants to share it with Jim. All of his successes, and everything that comes with it. He presses the invitation into Jim’s hands, holding them in his own as he tries to take the measure of the man. Jim isn’t responding to the bond at all, but Oswald sees he is rather a bit more confused than really resistant. They must talk, perhaps at the party, Oswald thinks.

“No thanks,” Jim says after his long moment of consideration.

Oswald bites down the sting of rejection.

“I hear you. Too busy, I suppose. Are you on a tricky case? Anything i can help you with?” Oswald looks around, then leans in close.“It worked so well the last time.”

“I don’t want your help,” Jim is quick to say. :It was a mistake to ask.”

That cuts him. But Jim’s not done.

“I don’t want you coming here.”

“You shouldn’t treat me this way Jim,” Oswald finds himself saying, grasping at straws. It’s true he is upset; and he has every right to be. He has tried to be selfless - he came with every intention of goodwill - but the way Jim is snubbing him is all too reminiscent of his daily interactions with the idiot thugs who think Oswald far below their own station.

“One day soon you’ll need my help. You’ll come to me,” Oswald says. He would, even if the two of them were not tied in this way, because Jim Gordon loves this city and Oswald does too. He will need Oswald’s help. “And walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.”

He says it as much for Jim’s benefit as his own. He does not want to antagonize this idealistic newcomer to Gotham, who sees himself as a righteous force. Oswald admires this bright, shining side of Jim and would not want to see that light dimmed by the harshness of the city. 

“Good luck with your police work and,” Oswald takes his hand, and implores, “please. Reconsider my invitation.”

He takes his leave.

.

Jim does not come to the club opening - it’s a wash anyway - but Maroni does. The blustering gorilla comes to mock him; is the second person in less than a week who tells him he better pray Falcone sticks around, because the second the old man is out of the picture Oswald’s enemies will come to exact revenge.

He needs a plan. 

He needs to make sure that Falcone or not, his position is secure.

.

Mother never gives Oswald any specifics about his father, but she is very clear that they were soulmates.

“The first time we touched,” she says, clasping her hands as she gears up for a dramatic retelling. “It was like lightning. Such a spark, it could have lit a man on fire. But he knew, even before he took my hand, that he loved me. I could see it in his eyes. Oh, your father was such a sweet, sweet man.”

Oswald has seen all sorts of matched couples. He’s seen pampered mob wives and star-crossed lovers and reformed gangsters desperate to move heaven and earth for their soulmates. He’s seen - well, heard - of traitors who get to watch as their soulmates scream and get gutted before they bite the bullet themselves.

Love is a vicious motivator, and Oswald has always known that. It was always part of his plan to keep his soulmate’s identity a secret, until he had amassed a position few would even think to challenge. Then, of course, he could have what he always wanted: his soulmate by his side, his equal in everything. 

He has to remind himself of this as he carries on with the club and his plans to work himself up the ranks. He needs to focus on this, on securing a seat at the table, rather than scheming his way back in Jim Gordon’s arms. For the time being. After all, what good will it do if he has Jim, and can’t protect him from Maroni? Or Falcone, when the time comes. 

He consoles himself with this very practical reminder as no further contact from Jim is forthcoming - even as a man Jim recently put away behind bars seems to have recently been exonerated and even about to be made president of their union. Oswald keeps busy, leaving little time to sulk, or plan some elaborate way for the two of them to cross paths.

And fate rewards his ambitious again, because as it turns out Jim is understanding after all, that if he wants to get something done in this city he will need Oswald’s help. Jim doesn’t just want Flass behind bars for good - he turns up at Oswald’s club fueled by barely concealed righteous indignation, like some kind of angel of vengeance, and Oswald has to restrain himself from just agreeing to help on the spot. 

He never liked Commissioner Loeb anyway.

The favor is a big one, however, and Oswald spells out the fact that this would require him to betray Don Falcone - not just a powerful man, but a powerful man who’s word will determine whether Oswald, whether either of them, live or die.

“I’d be betraying my patron,” he tells Jim, wide-eyed and mock hesitant. Jim gives a customary grumble and agrees to owe him a favor. Oswald continues on and requests time alone with the files - the favor is not the point, them working together is the point. Their goals are mutually beneficial, and they could work toward their own ends, answering to no one, if they only joined forces. Surely Jim will soon see that.

“I like information,” Oswald explains. He has a bottle of liquor in hand that will help him set the stage to tear Falcone and Maroni apart. Something that will help him secure his position. There are several ways to go about this - Fish is gone, and if he rids Gotham of maroni as well, he can be safe, potentially even when Falcone steps down. But it’s always nice to have some failsafe. More allies, if it were possible.

Jim haggles down the time and Oswald should have expected that much, plus keeping his hands off Jim’s beloved GCPD (there shall be time for it later), and Oswald readily agrees, all smiles. Jim seems to relax a bit, though his partner keeps interrupting and ruining the moment. Oswald will need to get them a moment alone.

“So who’s up for a road trip?” Oswald asks, too jovial for the detectives’ liking.

.

As expected, Detective Bullock is an utter mood killer the entire ride. Oswald catches Jim glancing back at him every so often, a searching look on his face, and Oswald can’t help smiling back. Only to have Bullock lob another complaint that Oswald has to counter, and Jim is stuck between the two of them. 

Things only turn further south once they arrive, as there are no files and now three people have seen Oswald’s face. The girl (at least Jim will get the leverage he needs) isn’t going to cause him trouble, but the couple he will have to deal with, and if he’s a little extra cruel in his handling, well, he deserves to blow off steam. 

At least they met their end together. They’d talked all dinner long about how they matched and how long they’d been together. But Oswald had pegged that old woman correctly, and she turned out to be thoroughly ready to throw her soulmate under the bus if it meant her survival. 

It’s not until hours later, with the bodies gone and his drink settling, that Oswald has the niggling worry that perhaps Jim may one day do the same.

He pushes the thought aside, appalled with himself. 

He and Jim Gordon may be in utterly different positions, but Jim Gordon is not that kind of man. He loves fiercely, Oswald can tell, and he is a protector. He is the kind of man who will lay down his life for what he holds dear. And in return, Oswald shall make it so that Jim will never have to. 

All in due time. 

It’s so late that when he comes back around the building and, for whatever reason, against all good judgement heads to the bar, he’s so startled he literally jumps when he hears someone at the door.

Warily, with the unloaded rifle in his hand as a bluff should the need arise, Oswald hobbles over to the door.

Only to find Jim Gordon. 

“Jim!” Oswald belatedly remembers his manners, after gaping for a moment, and steps aside to allow his guest in. The sight catches his breath, robbing the exclamation of much volume, and that is just as well. Jim steps into his dim, empty club, and then looks utterly unsure of himself.

“I - sorry.” He turns to leave.

“Wait no, don’t go.” The words come out before Oswald even thinks of them. He laughs haltingly, trying to make light of the visit. “You don’t have to be asking a favor to want to see me, silly. We’re friends, remember?”

Jim stares at him, eyes searching. Oh, he really doesn’t know. Oswald hadn’t even realized, but Jim’s indecision and ignoring of the bond must be its own sort of torment, not knowing what’s instinct and what are his own opinions. An entirely different problem from Oswald’s own, because Oswald knows that he wants to step close to Jim and just bask in his presence. Jim on the other hand has likely chalked his experience up to adrenaline, his feet moving of its own accord until they stopped at the door of someone who could listen and commiserate. 

Oswald wonders, wistfully, whether Jim even recognizes that he misses Oswald.

He invites the detective to sit, and takes up a spot from behind the bar, pouring him water when he refuses drink or tea. 

“I wanted to-“ Jim hesitates. “Thank you.”

Oswald beams at him. Assures him no thanks is necessary (though it really was only proper). Perhaps he is sorry Oswald didn’t get the files (and of course Jim wouldn’t be able to admit that) or recognizes the extent to which Oswald has stuck his neck out for him (wishful thinking perhaps; Jim still has a poor lay of the land and doesn’t seem to realize just how much Oswald’s done for him).

He suspects Jim will make some paltry excuse and run off now. Something about a big day ahead, extorting Loeb and all. Needing his beauty rest. Or having to check on Bullock.

“I went on a date,” Jim says.

Now that, that Oswald was not expecting.

Oswald stills, minutely.He tries to take in this new piece of information as he would any other data. So Jim craves companionship. This is good news. Moments after his Barbara Kean - not just girlfriend, fiancé even - left him, he let Oswald kiss him (and he kissed back). The second it was clear Barbara wouldn’t be coming back, he went on a date.

Oswald finds it a Herculean task to lift his eyes from the bar to Jim’s face.

Jim drags his hands down his face, clearly exhausted and exasperated with himself. He asked out a doctor he met during his stint as a security guard at Arkham. Jim really undersold the headline - they had in fact been on more than a singular date. Oswald brightens a bit (and tries not to let it show) when Jim mentioned having second thoughts once she came to work at the precinct. He’d wanted to break it off, but then she had asked him out to see a circus (a circus??) just days before he came to see Oswald for a favor, and that date had turned into a murder case (only Jim Gordon). 

Jim tells him this all like it’s a debrief, and Oswald reads between the lines to discover that Jim has never quite liked mixing business and pleasure,and it’s only gotten worse since his fiancé got gun shy. He wonders whether that will be a problem for the two of them (as if it is inevitable, because it is inevitable). Jim hadn’t liked it when Dr. Leslie Thompkins wanted to tag along on his case, but unspoken is the fear that her insistence that it was fun will turn into fuel for resentment later on, just like Barbara. 

Finding murder victims is not supposed to be fun.

Oswald reaches out to push back a stray lock of Jim’s hair, and the man lets him. He wants to ask Jim whether he realizes what a sorry sight he is to be lamenting over the woman he’s seeing to his soulmate, but surely that will only make him scowl and scamper off. 

If she’s the one you want, why are you here with me?

Jim turns his head and leans into Oswald’s touch at the thought, and Oswald almost startles thinking Jim has finally stopped resisting the bond. But then he pulls away and says with a sigh that he should be going.

“Wait.” Oswald holds his hand, and Jim doesn’t pull it out of his grasp but he doesn’t sit back down or set his jacket down either. Oswald huffs, and says in a rush, “We could be good for each other. I mean it, Jim, what you want for the city, it’s what I want too, and that should be enough for us to set aside certain differences.”

It’s not what he really wanted to say. He wants to make grand overtures, and sing Jim’s praises. He wants to assure him that their relationship could be strictly private, an emotional sanctuary from the violence of the city. He wants to console the man and shake him out of his naïveté all the same. He wants Jim to know how much he wants this. How long he’s waited for Jim to show up in his life. How he knew he was important even before they’d touched and matched. 

He doesn’t know how much of it, if any of it, makes it through to Jim as their hands are pressed together.

Jim’s expression is inscrutable as he pulls away to leave.

“Good night, Oswald.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve come to a crisis about how far into canon to take this hahaha


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim is an expert in self loathing

Jim’s late night visit to the club - Oswald’s club now, he supposes - doesn’t come to mind again until after the applause has died down. Loeb wouldn’t hand over his files, but he gave Jim Harvey’s, and his public endorsement of Jim for union president, so it feels like a win. He tells the press it’s a new day, but when he gets back to the locker rooms to give Harvey the good news, Harvey isn’t nearly as optimistic.

“Penguin’s going to want to collect,” he warns Jim. 

Jim somehow doesn’t like that even Harvey’s taken to calling Oswald by that moniker, as if it somehow cements his fate as a dangerous criminal to be put behind bars. Jim knows now that Oswald is more than that - it feels stupidly obvious, but last night during his walk home he finally understood why they were called soulmates. It’s like his soul recognizes Oswald’s, and wants to be close to it. 

Surely that counts for something special; a once in a lifetime sort of connection.

Oswald is every bit as clever as he claims to be, and Jim doesn’t doubt his love of the city either. He fancies Oswald could be a lot of help in cleaning up the city, and perhaps, if he lets himself dream a little, leave his life of crime behind once he’s helped put bad people behind bars.

So Jim doesn’t let Harvey’s gloomy pronouncement dull his rejuvenated sense of mission. 

He’s got a full case load to get back to, but before he’s even started opening one of the files he had Nygma pull for him, a uniformed officer introduces himself as Len Moore and tries to hand him another file.

“You’re a man with a reputation,” he tells Jim. “A Gotham detective who closes cases.”

It doesn’t pad Jim’s ego as much as the officer might think - Jim isn’t trying to be a lone hero, he wants the city’s great institutions, GCPD chief among them, restored in the hearts and minds of the people. He wants people to have faith in the police.

Moore tells him the victim’s family deserves justice, it was a horrific death, et cetera. Thing is, every one of the cases on his desk is just the same. He’s about to turn Moore down, but he goes for the solar plexus next.

“It's just. Well, there's a few of us younger guys, and we've been watching what you've been doing to clean up Gotham and the GCPD,” he says. “And I want to be a part of it, and bringing you this case is my way of trying to do that.”

And who is Jim to deny some young officer the opportunity to stand on the right side of things? 

Jim takes the case.

The victim is one Grace Fairchild, last seen at a bar in the South Village. 

Ed Nygma chooses that moment to pop up over Jim’s shoulder.

“If you have me, you want to share me. If you share me, you haven't got me. What am I?”

Jim cranes his head to give him a funny look.

“A secret. Is that relevant?”

Ed’s customary smile stretches into something almost giddy at Jim’s answer and he taps on the case file Jim is reading.

“Speakeasies - they’re a popular thing in South Village nowadays. Storefront doesn’t look like a bar, but walk through to the end of the dry cleaners or shoe shop, and it leads to a bar. Cool, huh?”

Harvey makes a face at Nygma.

“And how do you know that?” he asks pointedly. Jim can’t blame him, he wouldn’t have pegged Nygma for the type with an adventurous social life either. 

Ed’s smile drops, and he ducks down his face as if to keep his expression out of view, and pushes up his glasses. 

“I was having a discussion with Dr. Thompkins about restaurants and-“

“Hey Nygma,” Jim interrupts, showing him the last page of the file. “It says here there’s a piece of evidence, 3A, but it’s missing. Think you can find it?”

Ed brightens up again immediately.

“Yes, you can leave this puzzle to me!” He says, signing off with a little salute. Jim returns it, before turning back to Harvey who is giving him a very flat look.

“The victim’s family deserves justice,” Jim says, and he does mean it.

“We both know justice isn’t the real reason you want in on this,” Harvey retorts, because as usual, Harvey has his number.

“Alright, I’m ambitious,” Jim says. He wouldn’t have gone for that union president position if he wasn’t, and he’s not ashamed to admit it. And dammit, he’s done letting everyone who thinks they have power push him around.

“I wanna show people around here that things are gonna change,” he says. “But Harvey, I can’t do that without your help.”

It’s both earnest and teasing. Jim does need Harvey’s help, and over their last several cases they’ve really grown to an understanding, and found their footing as partners. He feels secure knowing Harvey has his back, and he knows Harvey returns that sentiment. Which is why he wants to show Harvey he doesn’t have to put on that lazy cop act anymore, he can be the righteous man Jim knows he wants to be.

.

An examination of the body reveals that Grace Fairchild was kept in nearly pristine condition before she was killed.

“She was gone for four months,” Lee says, curious and baffled. “Usually with an abduction that period of time you’ll find a lot of trauma to the body.”

Harvey posits she ran away, but Jim runs the facts through his head again and that doesn’t add up. She had a good life going for herself and seemed intent on making the most of it. She called her mother the day she disappeared. There’s no sign this was a runaway. 

Ed perks up then, interrupting with that ever-present smile of his and clipboard clutched to his chest.

“If it helps, she was severely drugged,” Ed says.

“What?” Lee turns to him, interested in what he discovered.

Ed shows them his chart, babbling on about a recent study he read about DNA and indicators and soulmate genetics, and honestly half of it goes over Jim’s head, but then Ed chimes in with a ludicrous notion.

“I think he’s experimenting with soul bonds,” Ed chimes in.

“What?” Jim’s the one asking this time.

“Well, like this study that Dr. Peabody had conducted, the tiny shifts in DNA that create what we call a ‘soul’ bond, might be the shifts he’s going for with this genetically altering drug,” Ed says. 

They stare at him.

Ed startles, pushing up his glasses nervously. 

“I’ve been trying to recreate a method for testing for these gene alterations myself the last few weeks - in my spare time, of course, and-“

“That sounds very dangerous,” Lee says, her expression more worried than fascinated now. 

“Fiddling with DNA willy nilly? Yeah, I’d say so,” Harvey grouses, not very interested at all. 

Jim, however, is reeling. Just how much information about soulmates had he missed, anyway? At least this bit of information didn’t seem to be common knowledge.

On his way out, Jim pulls Ed aside to ask him for a few reading recommendations on the topic of soulmates, and Ed is more than happy to supply a list. He asks Ed to look into whether other murder victims have had similar alterations as well, even though it may very well be a needle-in-a-haystack sort of search.

So when Ed heads over to his and Harvey’s desk again not long after that, Jim assumes it’s with his former request rather than the latter. It’s not.

“So, that missing piece of evidence is long gone, but I found a photocopy deep in a logbook,” showing Jim the picture. A broken heart, hand painted. 

Jim’s first thought is that this must be the killer’s calling card, and laments the rise of another serial killer. But Harvey’s reaction is - to Jim’s surprise - fear and anger. He practically shakes Ed down to confirm this piece of evidence is legit, before pulling Jim aside to deliver the bad news.

“I warned you,” Harvey says. 

He explains. The guy’s known as the Don Juan Killer, or The Ogre. He’s killed several women over the years, always an abduction, then a clean corpse. Sometimes he keeps them for weeks, sometimes months. 

“Why haven’t I heard about it?” Jim asks. There’s been nothing in the media over the years either, and the newspapers love to splash their serial killers over their front pages. 

“It’s the GCPD’s dirty little secret,” Harvey says, and Jim wants to scoff - as if that were the only one. “He retaliates against cops who investigate. He kills the people they love.”

Jim’s already feeling the chill when Harvey adds that that’s why he hasn’t been caught yet. He asks who turned Jim onto the case file and Jim realizes he hadn’t even thought of how easily he was played.

“A uniformed cop,” he says, scrambling to remember the name.

“Who?” Harvey pushes. “Which one?”

“Moore,” Jim says. “Len Moore.”

Harvey turns on his heel, crosses the precinct, and drags the guy into the locker rooms before Jim can so much as ask what Harvey’s going to do. He gets in Moore’s face before Jim even has a say - not that he would’ve stopped Harvey - and squeezes the truth out of him.

It was Loeb. 

Of course it was. Because Loeb has dirt on Moore too, and probably every other cop in the city. And Jim only managed to negotiate Harvey’s file out from under his thumb - what seemed like a victory at the time now feels almost hollow.

“Told me exactly what to say,” the officer tells Jim. “He knew you couldn’t say no.”

And he was right. Jim feels sick.

Harvey tells Jim he still has time to drop it, now, while he still has time.

“Are you still seeing that ME?” Harvey asks, as he grabs Jim’s arm to prevent him from storming off and doing something’s stupid.

Jim feels even worse right then, because he hadn’t even thought about Lee.

“No,” he says. “We dated but it hasn’t really gone anywhere.”

Harvey schools his face to cover what Jim guesses is a pitying look.

“Well drop it now, before the Ogre finds out you’re investigating and goes after you,” Harvey says.

Except Jim’s no longer listening, because he stops Loeb across the station right then and Jim’s cold dread turns to red hot rage.

“You!” Jim growls before he’s even gotten to Loeb. “You son of a bitch. You set me up.”

The commissioner has the audacity to look unbothered. Smug even. 

It disgusts Jim, how a man of such importance to the city is squandering his power to blackmail is own men. Forcing the police who signed up to protect and serve this city into unspeakable crimes, and holding that over them as leverage. It’s sickening. And Jim will take no part in the commissioner’s vile vision of the city.

“I’m gonna find the Ogre,” Jim declares. “I’m gonna put him behind bars.”

Jim intends to do what no one else seems to be willing to do: the right thing. That means putting criminals behind bars, because he’s a cop, and that’s what cops are meant to do. It isn’t his fault that what should be the standard is instead a Herculean task. 

One that he’s getting laughed at for. Ridiculed by other cops who once took up the badge presumably to do the right thing.

But if he does this, and he shows others it can be done, well, it’s score one for the good guys. Others will follow.

He’s sure of it.

He has to be.

“And when I’m done I’m coming after you,” Jim says. “I’m coming after you, Commissioner. You’re done.”

Jim’s not afraid of a challenge, in fact prefers it, but this is a matter of larger principles. By the time Jim’s finished he’s practically snarling. He practically shakes with the force of his anger, which he fears is on the verge of spilling over. He takes a deep breath and walks out for a spot of privacy, and picks up his phone.

He dials Oswald.

It rings once before the man picks up. “Jim, how-“ He sounds fine. Jim hangs up.

Then he steels his nerves and calls Lee. The seconds drag on as the phone rings, and rings, and rings. 

Finally, she picks up.

“Hey Jim,” Lee says. She sounds chipper. Relaxed. Not the sound of someone being held at gunpoint trying to keep her voice steady. Jim breathes a sigh of relief.

“Can I come over?” Jim asks despite already being on his way, then mentally slaps himself because he knows exactly how that sounds. 

“I have to warn you about something,” he adds, then kicks himself because scaring her over the phone was precisely what he wanted to avoid. 

“Um, sure,” she says.

Her hair is damp when Lee unlocks the front door to let him in. In her cozy robe and tastefully furnished apartment, Jim is suddenly loath to enter, feeling like he is intruding on a life that he has no right to be a part of. He’s committed himself to a kind of vendetta, and the breakup with Barbara had made clear that he cannot have both his cause and the sort of personal life that could build a home.

He tells Lee about the Ogre. Tells her to get out of Gotham. She says no, and it feels an awful lot like deja vu. Jim hates it.

“If you want to protect me,” she says, “catch this guy.”

She gives him a gutsy smile, and it’s sweet, and much too similar to Barbara before the horror Jim wrought upon her. In another life, he would have fallen in love with Lee right then and there. In another life where he thought he deserved a second chance. 

Jim’s not sure what he deserves anymore. 

He’s gone through hell trying to right wrongs within his own department, amongst the guys who are supposed to be on the right side to begin with, and where has that gotten him?

For all his headstrong bluster, Jim fears he’s doing no good at all.

He can’t let that happen, let all his damage be for nothing.

.

Harvey tracks down the first cop who worked the Ogre case - the man’s wife was a casualty of his investigating the killer - and they press on, showing him the faces of victim after victim until he cracks. He tells them Julie Kemble, the first victim, who worked at a cosmetic clinic.

The killer is the worst of the worst; carefully designing and carrying out his crimes, boasting about them, signing his work, and then hunting down cops and their families and scaring the police into doing nothing. Jim refuses to let someone like this continue to roam the streets of Gotham. 

A visit to the clinic is far from fruitful, the head doctor allowing them nothing unless they show a signed warrant. But outside, across the street in the alleyway, Jim recognizes a car.

“That was outside the precinct,” he tells Harvey, starting toward it as the headlights turn on. Wrong move - the driver, backlit and obscured, hits the accelerator and the two of them barely jump out of the way in time.

When they get back to the precinct later, car long gone, there’s a call for him.

“I didn’t get to say hello properly earlier in the alley,” the voice says - it’s the Ogre - and when Jim realizes, he’s too hot headed to keep the killer talking, goading him into revealing information. Instead he tells the son of a bitch he’s going to take him down, and grinds his teeth when that only makes the monster laugh.

“Something tells me you’ve begun to buy your own press, detective. The hero cop who’s gonna clean up Gotham. ‘Rising star of the GCPD.’ I will kill someone you love.” 

The line goes dead with a click.

Jim isn’t surprised when he fellow cops again advise him to back down. He even understands that Essen is cautioning him from a place of concern for his personal well-being. But Jim is still so utterly disappointed in how easily this department caves. Whatever happened to not negotiating with terrorists? Gotham is letting terrorstomp all over her beloved values and institutions, letting it rule their fears.

“He’s used to hunting cops,” Jim says. “We have to show him we’re not afraid.”

And then he does something utterly stupid. He asks Lee to be bait.

Jim’s posture stiffens but he can’t school the chagrined expression on his face. Remembering her words the day before, her encouragement and belief he would catch the guy, he asks her to stand beside him on the way out to his impromptu press briefing with the gaggle of reporters on the GCPD steps. As union president and the rookie who once apparently caught the Wayne killers, the media in this town have taken an interest in him and he has more than a few reporters in his contacts. Jim can’t say he fully trusts them, but he does trust them to latch on to anything they can sensationalize. If it bleeds, it leads. 

Lee gives him that optimistic smile again, and Jim can’t help but hope Gotham doesn’t someday rob her of that too. It’s every bit as encouraging as she likely intended it to be - it reminds Jim what he’s putting himself through the wringer for. So that everyday citizens of this nuthouse of a city have a chance at peace and a good life. 

“You’re asking a lot,” she says, before her serious expression melts into that almost teasing smile. “But it’s the right thing to do.”

Jim does his best to smile back, then steps up to the plate to talk to the press. He gives the names of previous victims, as many as they’re aware of, and spills the lurid details of the serial killer known as the Ogre, who abducts and murders innocent women and hunts down those who seek to bring him to justice. He asks the public to call in with any information they have - before he kills again.

The impending public panic helps in more than one way as a reluctant judge signs over the warrant they need to compel the clinic owner into giving them information.

Julie Kemble only worked there briefly, under the referral of a Constance van Groot, from one of the old, wealthy families of Gotham.

.

Jim and Harvey head up to the van Groot estate where they finally get some answers. Crazy ones, As if straight out of a bad soap opera.

Jim barges into the house much to Harvey’s concern, but he’s in too deep to mind the finer details of police procedure at this point. It hasn’t escaped his notice that he’s the one who willingly put Lee in the crosshairs, and now he’s reeling from what a foolhardy, underhandedly manipulative move that was. If anything happens, that blood is on his hands.

It only takes a few seconds to realize it was a blessing Jim hadn’t played by the rule book on this one, because the butler of the house might have choked to death if they’d waited around for an answer. 

Upstairs, there is a long-dead heiress, and it’s clear that the butler must have kept her death a secret in order to keep cashing in. 

“I’m not afraid of you,” the slimy old geezer sneers, and Jim slams his hands on the table because he’s does not have the time for goddamn difficult witnesses right now.He is racing against the clock blind, and he doesn’t understand why every single person in this town seems so intent on making justice absolutely, infinitely difficult to achieve.

“Only because you don’t know me,” Jim spits in his face, before shoving him back.

It rattles him into talking, at least. He rambles on about how his son made just one mistake - he’s either an out of touch idiot, or truly warped. 

“He had this idea the was her secret son,” he says. “Miss van Groot led him on. She was deranged, cruel even.”

And so he killed the old lady - but that was a decade ago, and the butler helped his son cover it up. He claims he hasn’t seen his son since then, save a few hours ago when he rigged him up with a long rope after clocking him over the head from behind. 

He laughs in their faces when Harvey says his son has been seducing and killing women these past ten years. And then he pulls out the old photographs showing the Ogre’s misshapen face.

Now they know why he started his serial killer career after a trip to the cosmetics clinic.

.

Jim is back at the precinct at a near ungodly hour after having tried and failed fitfully to sleep. He remembers the reading material he requested from Ed waiting for him at his desk, so he decides poring over those may help spark some insight into the monster they’re after.

Once they knew who they were dealing with, Ed had dug up old autopsies reports that, while incomplete in the area he was looking for, did note DNA abnormalities in three of the dozen victims. Ed hypothesized the man must have some background in organic chemistry and genetics to pull this off, but this had yet to narrow down their search.

The studies Ed picked out for him are almost unbearably dry, and Ed’s notes in the margins are no better. But Jim learns that while the bonds activate immediately upon touch, and actually only in 98 percent of cases, they take time and exposure to strengthen and become permanent. They are breakable too, though almost always only through trauma. He frowns, thinking back of those times Oswald had taken Jim’s hand in his and held it there for what he thought at the time was no apparent reason. 

Jim learns that the cheesy ‘bonds help you feel what your soulmates feel’ line about some next level empathy isn’t as innocuous as it sounds. 

If you read between the lines, or read some of the more radical of authors as Ed seems to prefer, you learn that the bonds enable each party to exude a level of influence. That with the right touch, one can steer the other toward a certain decision, or line of thinking. The experiments he reads about are tinged with a layer of something almost sinister in its wording, and Jim has to put away the studies and look at something else. He pores over the casefile again, feeling rather sickly just in time for Lee to come into the precinct to start her morning shift and comment on how pale Jim looks. She rightly assumes he hasn’t slept, and presses the paper bag with a bagel in it into his hand insisting he remedy the fact that he hasn’t eaten. He means no harm when he turns her away curtly - he truly doesn’t think he can keep any food down, and the lack of leads on a case that now very directly involves her makes it hard to look her in the eye.

  
Essen takes a look at the pile of claims they have - a sketch of a decade-ago Jason Skolimski courtesy of the cosmetics clinic doctor, and no records for either a Jason Skolimski or Jason Van Groot of any sort. 

“Have you got anything else?” she asks.

That nearly sends him on another rant about how the monster needs to be brought to justice but Jim catches himself as he remembers something the Ogre said on the phone. 

The press. And that was even before he spoke to them.

Oh no.

The article he’d quoted, they’d ran a photo of him, and he wasn’t alone.

The Ogre’s not after Lee, he’s after Barbara.

Jim curses himself for not catching this earlier, but at this point he’s tired of being driven by guilt. He’s never been good at being dictated to by fear either. In the midst of this, a line from one of the studies he’d read earlier comes to mind-

And his heart drops into the pit of his stomach.

  
What if he’s been off all this time, feeling so unlike himself and out of his skin, precisely because he hasn’t been going at this alone?

Because all of this, losing Barbara included, began around that time he refused to kill one Oswald Cobblepot on the pier. That day he found his soulmate.

Could letting an aspiring gangster of a snake wreak havoc on his emotions and pull his strings through the influence of a soul bond not be why he’s in this mess? Jim would have to be a fool to think anything good could come from a tie to someone like him.He had in fact been a fool, been fooled into a comfortable lull by the bond already. His stomach revolts at the idea, and Jim is somehow glad he can’t remember when he last ate after all.

He’d deal with Cobblepot later. First he has to find Barbara.

.

Jim pictures the worst on his way over to the penthouse. Would he find her on the ground in a pool of her own blood, blonde hair tinged pink as she gasps her last breaths before Jim sees the life go out of her eyes? Would she already be quiet and gone, as if asleep, by the time he got there?

Did he dare hope she was still out of town, away from her apartment, still shacked up with Montoya or whichever ex she had latched on to? A safer choice, for sure. A saner choice.

The winner is none of the above, as Selina Kyle opens the door with a grumpy grimace after all of Jim’s knocking. Barbara’s gone to a ball, for chrissake. She’s in public, surrounded by some of Gotham’s wealthiest. Good.

“She left with some guy,” Selina says, dashing all of Jim’s hopes.

He unrolls the sketch in a hurry.

“Did he look like this?” Jim asks. Selina gives him a worried look, and nods.

.

Barbara never comes home that night and Jim looks like death warmed over when he returns to the precinct the next day, but he’s in luck. Harvey’s got some street punk by the ear and hauls him off into one of the interrogation rooms because the guy had been bragging on the street about knowing the Ogre.

Looks like that press did some good after all.

Harvey leaves the room and Jim is almost looking forward to the idea of blowing off some steam intimidating this guy, but there must be something to the look in his eyes because he cracks before Jim even needs to lay a hand on him.

“He was a barman at this club called the Foxglove,” Jim tells Harvey. “Says the Ogre was a regular.”

It’s a brothel that caters to the extreme, so of course that’s the kind of place the Ogre would make his usual haunt. To make things even better, the location changes regularly.

“You have to know someone who knows someone,” Harvey says.

“I might know someone,” Jim says without much feeling. 

“You talking Penguin? If you get any deeper with that clown, he will own you,” Harvey warns. 

He tries to get Jim to wait, catch some z’s while he presses his contacts, but Jim has no choice. The Ogre has Barbara.

Besides, Jim has a feeling Oswald Cobblepot owes him more than just the favors they’ve been trading, if his recent revelation holds any truth.

He’s not sure whether Oswald’s aware he’s onto him, and frankly, Jim is too wired to care at the moment. He warns Oswald, as he has nearly everyone these past few days, not to underestimate him. 

Everyone thinks they have Jim pinned down for what he is, but they don’t.

If they think that because the papers called him a do-gooder, a righteous cop, that that means he’ll shove aside when asked, that he’ll be easy to dismiss by less law-abiding powers, they have another thing coming. 

He doesn’t have time for Oswald’s stammering or pleasantries and makes that clear too. Oswald agrees to procure the invitation in exchange for a favor, and that’s good enough. For now.

Jim has half a mind to reneg on what he’s promised and claim innocence when Oswald comes calling to collect on debts. He pushes the thought aside - Jim has little bandwidth to consider what the future holds for him right now.

Exhausted, he hands the invitation over to Harvey.

Then he tries one more time to spare a moment for sleep.

.

It must have worked, because Jim wakes with a jolt to his phone ringing. It’s Harvey on the other end of the line, to let him know they’ve got cops swarming through the Foxglove and Jim is there in no time. 

They have some luck with one of the hostesses who turns out to be what was probably the Ogre’s first victim - nine years ago, before he had time to hone his craft. She got away, but not without a nasty scar he left covering the right side of her face. 

She’s seen the inside of his apartment, and the few details she held onto are enough for them to narrow down the possible buildings considerably. They have a lead - a solid lead.

Jim’s glad Harvey’s already gone off to tell the Madam they’re finished when she stops Jim with a hard look and a request he more than sympathizes with.

“Promise me when you find him, don’t arrest him. Kill him,” she says.

Jim returns that look, and he nods.

.

They find the apartment, but it’s dark, and Jim already knows it’s going to be empty. They find his playroom full of weapons, toys, restraints. 

And a box lined with the photographs of each and every one of his victims.

Jim can still smell Barbara’s perfume, lingering not a few feet away from the pictures of the women the Ogre killed. 

Barbara’s photo isn’t there.

She’s still alive.

There’s a phone beside his trunk full of trophies and it rings - it has to be him, realizing the cops are the ones who tripped his security system. Jim glances at Harvey as he reaches for the phone. The sheer audacity of this monster. They’re going to catch him.

“You son of a bitch, where’s Barbara,” Jim says. He switches the call to speaker.

“She’s as safe as milk. She doesn’t need your protection,” he says. “Fact is, she never did.”

The call is short - he’s rattled, he has to be.

Jim turns to Harvey, the two recalling what they heard. He was driving - over a bridge, near a train.

“Whitecross!” Harvey says. “Upstate.”

“That’s where her parents live,” Jim realizes. They’ve just dragged more innocents into his mess.

The drive is supposed to be a good 45, 50 minutes, but Jim thinks they might’ve made it in half the time with the number of traffic laws they’d broken. There is a car outside Barbara’s parents’ home, and the lights are on.

They approach armed and silent, and find the butler with his throat cut on the ground of the foyer. Music is playing, and dim lights are on across various rooms in the house.

Jim finds his once nearly parents-in-law tucked beside each other on the sofa, faces placid in death, and covered in blood.

He lowers his gun as he takes in the horror, and then Barbara emerges from under the archway, from the adjacent sitting room - who has an entire sitting room beside their living room? - she moves as if sleepwalking, her head swaying minutely with each step like a doll.

“Jim?” Barbara says, voice far away. “What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here?”

There is something wrong with Barbara. Her eyes are bright and glassy. It hits him that she must have been drugged - too. She must have been drugged too.

Like the others.

Influenced.

Not herself.

“Where is he?” Jim asks instead. 

Then something lunges at him, and Jim barely throws himself out of the way in time. They grapple, knocking over a table, and Barbara just looks on, dazed, as the Ogre has Jim in a stranglehold. 

Jim breaks out of it but barely gets a blow in before he’s up and running. He has a knife - where’s Harvey? - and takes Barbara hostage.

“Drop the knife or I’ll shoot,” Jim says, getting a good look at the Ogre for the first time. It doesn’t even bother Jim that he pictures the man’s face with a bullet hole in his forehead.

“Just an ounce of pressure and she’ll split right open,” he says, “I dont want that. You don’t want that. Look at her. The serum’s perfect. Finally got the dosage right.”

Jim does his best to tune him out and make eye contact with Barbara. She doesn’t look scared so much as dazed out of her mind. Was it like this when Zsasz had her?

“It’s gonna be alright,” he tells Barbara.

“I love her more than you ever did,” the madman insists. 

“Jim,” Barbara says, surprising him. “Please just leave us alone.”

He’s not sure how to respond to that, but he doesn’t have to.

“Hey jerk!” Harvey provides just the distraction he needs, and Jim takes the shot. Right in the head.

The Ogre drops, and Jim rushes to Barbara’s side.

“He’s dead?” she asks, sounding disbelieving. Jim holds her face in his hands.

“Yeah, he’s dead,” Jim says, trying to sound comforting. He doesn’t feel guilt, or even relief. But he feels in control. “Look at me, Barbara, it’s going to be ok.”

He holds her until the ambulance arrives, and then rides in EMT bus solely, he suspects, because he’s terrified the paramedics. 

It’s probably unnecessary - he spends the entire ride stoically tucked in the corner, and Barbara barely notices him.

Physically, she isn’t wounded. 

But mentally, anyone can tell she is unwell. Jim looks on at the hollow, Barbara-shaped shell, even more empty than the lost doll she was just earlier.

“What’s wrong with her?” Jim asks the doctor as they disembark, probably too blunt for anyone’s liking.

“Trauma,” is the doctor’s impatient, annoyed answer. “She just suffered a nasty break.”

“Break?” Jim asks, knowing he won’t want to hear the answer, knowing she hasn’t suffered any physical trauma from this particular ordeal.

“Bond break,” the doctor answers, pushing past him. She turns and looks him up and down, momentarily confused, before turning her attention back to her patient. “Must have been terrible, to be so mind shattering. She’s still in shock.”

Jim leaves before he can watch Barbara and the medical team disappear into the hospital, and heads back to the precinct before he can let thoughts of the future settle in and haunt him.

But it turns out he might not have to drown himself in paperwork to avoid thinking about the fate of his own bond.

“Everybody listen up!” Essen yells from just outside of her office. Her face is grim. “Just got wind of three separate attacks on Falcone businesses in different parts of town. Word is it's Maroni.”

“As of right now, all leaves are canceled,” she says. “All units are called in for active duty. We're in a shooting war, people.”


	14. Chapter 14

“Oswald.” Jim’s gaze is heated as he swallows in determination and pushes forward, closing the gap between them in a kiss that’s almost bruising in its desperation. Oswald reaches out to touch, fingertips skimming the smooth weave of Jim’s shirt, much too thick a barrier for his liking. His palm flattens against Jim’s abdomen, thrills a bit at the radiating heat beneath his hands. It emboldens him, and Oswald drinks his fill of touch, hands roaming and exploratory as he studies the planes and contours of Jim’s body, hands moving as his lips move, until they come up to stroke his neck, and then rest upon his shoulder. 

Oswald breaks away, his eyes opening to see Jim’s meet him in understanding. The hand on Jim’s shoulder guides him, gentle but insistent, and Oswald’s breath catches as he watches the proud man sink to his knees for him.

“Oswald!”

Oswald slaps the bath water, eyes opening in short-tempered frustration as he lets his head fall back repeatedly to strike the edge of his mother’s bath tub. He yells some stupid excuse back and how he’ll be out and dry in time for tea and television - some foreign soap his mother is purely obsessed with - and makes haste to be able to do just that.

There were pains to living at home, to be sure, but things were all so simple just the same.

He should have cherished it more, the idyllic peace they’d carved out for themselves between these walls.

He feels absolutely gutted when he spots Maroni seated next to his mother - and much too close at that - laughing and filling her ears with false flattery.

And wasn’t it he himself who said the discovery of what one loves becomes the key to killing him, to one of Maroni’s favored drones, not too long ago?

Tears of anger sting in Oswald’s eyes as he is forced to sit with the Neanderthal who has his beloved mother in his clutches. Maroni has crossed a line Oswald would never have predicted he would be capable of. Perhaps in all his time playacting as the upper echelon of Gotham’s underworld are apt to - false gentility masking abhorrent violence - he’s forgotten they are all far from genteel.

Oswald, apparently, is not the only one willing to play dirty. To revel in his ability to sink below his opponent, seeming so far beneath them they would not expect an attack so low.

He would never have pegged someone so high up the food chain to resort to outing Oswald’s secrets to his own mother.

Shame burns brighter than anger when Gertrude Kapelput’s smile starts to falter. There’s something in her eye that makes Oswald look away and turn the full force of his indignance toward Maroni as he holds his dear mother, trying to soothe and protect her in a way he fears he is unable to.

This is one casualty Oswald never thought he would have to bear. 

Oswald Cobblepot’s one good relationship in his life is that of the one with his mother. Her well of unconditional love is sometimes, often, his only source of affection. She may just be the one soul in the world who cares about Oswald, truly cares, and if Maroni has managed to turn her against him - not even that, but rupture their relationship in any sort of way - 

It may just irreparably break Oswald’s heart. 

He tucks her head against himself and strokes her hair and makes quick plans to take her home, all the while refusing to meet her eyes. He doesn’t know if he can bear the blow of her gaze tinged with fear - fear directed at him. Disappointment. Condemnation. Things Oswald never imagined he could ever fear seeing from his own flesh and blood.

Gertrude clasps Oswald’s hands in her own as they sit on her living room sofa and she asks, voice deceptively earnest, for him to tell her the truth. It’s a trap, he thinks. He can’t possibly say such horrible, awful things to her. Gertrude Kapelput is not naive, no, but there are things Oswald cannot bear to share with his one clean relationship, the one corner of his life untouched by the bloodshed that rules every other aspect. Oswald is not afraid to get his hands dirty, takes some vile glee in it rather, but he does not want his mother to see.

So he lies. 

She must see it in his face, she is so keenly perceptive. It’s where Oswald got it from, he’s sure. The father he never knew is unremarkable in his eyes, but his mother is the source of every clever gift he has. And Oswald may be a consummate liar, but he is still his mother’s son.

She leaves with a flimsy excuse of a need to go to bed, and leaves Oswald alone in the dark, heaving short, choking breaths alone on the sofa as he tries not to break out in the sobs of despair that try viciously to burst out of his chest. In that moment, revenge doesn’t even cross his mind. Just shame, and fear of how his mother might look at him the next day, and whether that glimmer of disappointment or suspicion would ever leave her eyes. It’s not until a knock comes at the door that breaks Oswald from his reverie of melancholy that he even remembers Maroni even exists.

That the cretin dares to send notice to his mother’s home. Oswald shuts the door and feels the machinations of his mind click into place once more - work has always been the best antidote to his moods, plotting a way for him to climb out of the depths of his unfathomable despair. He swings the door open and tells the messenger he’s changed his mind, he will meet with Maroni himself, and send that bastard to hell. Gutting the lackey gives Oswald a little respite, even if he still sniffles when he calls back to his mother to say he is merely helping a neighbor, and taking out the trash. It’s true enough. 

His nose and eyes are still tinged with red from all the tears, but Oswald is in much better spirits as he secures the bar where he will kill Maroni and succeeds in hiring the gunmen to do so. Maroni’s favorite drink will make for a nice note of irony and dull him into complacency. 

Oswald’s first thought had been death directly - swift retaliation for Maroni’s sins. By morning he thinks better of his rash plan, and decides Maroni shall do his dirty work for him without even realizing - a fair return for what Oswald’s suffered.

A war is coming, but who’s to say Oswald can’t be the one to start it? 

He’s so caught up running through the moves he will have to make that he is only giving Jim half his attention when the harried detective rushes in with another request for a favor. He’s gruff as he demands an invitation to quite the establishment and Oswald absently notes he likely hasn’t slept, chalks that up to the reason Jim seems frayed at the edges. A difficult case with a serial killer. He vaguely remembers Jim’s abrupt call.

Oswald has his plate full himself. Immediately he knows he will grant Jim’s request - he doesn’t think he could ever deny this man who makes his heart sing so. But he does want to impress upon him the idea that Oswald is really sticking out his neck for him, not just this time, but in general. He starts some long winded excuse about his patron - in reality Falcone will be of no consequence in just a few days time - but Jim cuts him off having none of it.

And frankly, the memory of being pressed close to Jim, watching the pink tip of his tongue dart out over his lips, quite eclipses the rest of that meeting.

He should have known something was going on.

Oswald later hears about the whole fiasco with Barbara, and of Lee standing beside the good detective for all the papers, and he feels deeply bitter. Is what he is, all that he is to remain, a dirty secret? To Jim, to his mother. 

Oswald downs another drink and watches the seconds tick by on the clock. Soon enough, the hired guns he set on Maroni will meet their untimely death, and Maroni will rain all of his hot tempered wrath down on Falcone’s forces, weakening both families in the process. 

His lips curl in a smile, as he pictures the carnage he has just commanded. 

Falcone looks weak now - is weak, as Maroni hits three of his places in one day and leaves rubble in his wake. City Hall, the Financial District, and the rest of Gotham’s elites are rattled. No one wants a war. Support quickly gathers behind Maroni and then word gets around: Falcone is out. Maroni is the city’s darling now, but Oswald will remedy that soon enough too.

Falcone himself survives a big, flashy attack, and Oswald rushes to the poorly guarded wing of the hospital where they’ve stashed him, before someone else comes to off the weakened former king.

Flowers in hand and Butch in tow, Oswald limps into Falcone’s sorry chamber.

“Good morning, good morning,” Oswald says, smiling through Falcone’s panicked demand that he help free him from the restraints to escape before Maroni’s men arrive. Oswald just tucks the cheap bouquet he picked up into Falcone’s hand with a patronizing pat, and squares his jaw to say his goodbyes. He wants to see the look on Falcone’s face as the Don realizes just how much he’d underestimated Oswald.

Oswald, who offered him so much by way of information and power, and was gifted precious little in return.

They’ve all underestimated him - and now the war they’d all seen coming is here, and they’re about to realize just who started, and, perhaps more importantly, who will end this war.

“It was me, old friend,” Oswald says to the confused old man. “I did this to you.”

He swallows, disbelieving, and Oswald turns away to procure an instrument that may help him drive home the message.

“I started the war. From the day I met you, I was planning your end. I’m sorry it has to be in this...squalid little corner, but,” Oswald trails off, looking around at the sad neglected room. What a bitter, quiet end to his famed reign. It’s a pity, almost. But Oswald is glad Maroni hired unallied guns to do the job, ones who put money first and had no qualms about missing Falcone - just barely - and left him suitably rattled in a dramatic but not at all fatal blow. He wants to see the life seep out of him, he wants to see the light leave Don Falcone’s eyes. He wants to hear his last, dying words, and he wants them to be about Oswald Cobblepot.

Not because he hates Falcone, not in particular, and certainly not more than Maroni. But if there’s anything he learned even in just the past weeks, jumping from Fish to Falcone and Maroni, it’s that he will never rise to the top as long as the old guard are still around.

And if Falcone’s going to die anyhow, why shouldn’t he do the honors?

“C’est la vie,” Oswald says.

“Why?” The Don asks, sounding almost resigned. It’s tragic. 

“Nothing personal, I assure you sir,” Oswald says, the courteous language he picked up while holding Fish’s umbrella coming as easily as ever. “You have been a wise mentor and a good friend.” 

Oswald’s voice trembles, as he holds up the scalpel and watches Falcone’s resigned, tired expression. He’s almost sorry.

Kidding.

He’s practically shaking with excitement. Falcone may be a wonderful opponent to have, but Oswald knows well he wouldn’t last long in a fight - against him, or anyone. Fish is out. Falcone has been delivered on a slab. Maroni is only a matter of time.

And then Gotham is his.

“Business must come first!” Oswald’s voice cracks. He wonders, briefly, as the pensive mood gets to him, who he shall be defined by when these enemies are gone? 

“I’m going to take your place old man,” Oswald says, and the glee he has been working so hard to suppress rises to the surface. “I’m going to be the King of Gotham!”

He hasn’t said that aloud to anyone yet - and it feels damn good to finally be able to do so. 

“You?” Falcone says, and Oswald’s smile drops as he recognizes the beginning of mockery coming into his tone. “Never.”

“You’re going to burn in hell,” Falcone says. Oswald steps closer, and twists his mouth, as if confiding a secret.

“I do worry about that,” Oswald confesses. And his dear mother certainly does. Will all the good he will do as king make up for the pawns he had to discard on his climb to the top? In another age, they would have called it his destiny. Oswald is quite certain this is his destiny. Down the road, when they write stories and histories about him, that’s what they’ll say.

“But you first, my old friend,” Oswald bites out, brandishing the scalpel. It satisfies him to see Falcone swallow nervously, eyeing the tiny blade. Just an inch long, and all he needs to nip a few arteries and end the old man’s life. Hell may even be made palpable if he gets to spend an eternity seeing his enemies suffer. “You first.”

The sound of a gun cocking has Oswald kicking himself for not carrying this out as he intended - as business.

“Nobody move,” comes Jim’s familiar, gruff voice. Dammit. He relents, rather than risk talking down an angry, betrayed Jim for the chance to nick Falcone first. Oswald bares his teeth, trying to tamp down his rising rage and holds up a hand.

“Walk away,” Oswald commands, and frankly he half expects Jim to do so.

“Shut up.” Jim sounds horribly down. Is he disappointed? Oswald doesn’t have time for this. “You’re both under arrest for attempted murder.”

He walks Butch over to the radiator at the point of his gun, and avails him of his weapon before cuffing him to the pipes. Oswald’s jaw drops because he is next. 

“Haven’t you heard? Falcone is out, by official decree.” Oswald want to roll his eyes. At other times, Jim’s dogged determination is even charming. But now is not the time!

“I heard,” Jim says uncaring.

“So release me, Jim, get on the winning side,” Oswald grouches. Utterly unbelievable, how close he’s come and how easily it’s slipped from his hands. He should have learned this lesson weeks ago, when his transgressions resulted in Fish beating him with a chair until his leg was mangled. Jim is endearingly unpredictable, but now is not the time. 

Falcone interjects. “Winning side, my ass. Maroni’s a fool. He can’t replace me.”

Oswald scoffs. He doesn’t mean Maroni.

“A thousand rivals will jump up to challenge him,” Falcone declares. He turns to Jim to make his case. “There’ll be civil war. If I die now, Gotham falls apart.”

“I agree,” Jim says, and Oswald’s head snaps up. No. “But can you turn things around? Can you take back control?”

“Of course!” Falcone says. Oswald watches on as Falcone and Jim hash out their plans. It’s a surreal event he hasn’t planned for. Jim, a faithful lieutenant to the city in full, finally accepting he has to work both sides of the law - it’s what he pictured in the future yet, but hand in hand with him, with Oswald - not Falcone. Falcone doesn’t deserve him.

And Jim, why is he doing this? 

“Two days at my safe house,” Falcone says, and Jim turns away, jaw set and impatient. “I need two days to make some moves. Then I’ll skin Maroni and those disloyal scum like rabbits.”

That’s hilarious enough to snap Oswald out of his sinking pit of betrayal. 

“Wake up, Napoleon! Maroni’s louts are minutes away from coming here and cutting your throats!” Oswald says. They need to move, and fast. “And the thing is, Jim, they aren’t very fond of me either. So, seriously, you need to uncuff me, Jim!”

Oswald watches in dismay and nerve wracking impatience as Jim steps out into the hall, armed with Butch’s semi-automatic at least, to make a call. His hearing is good enough to pick up the gist of the conversation. The poor misguided good cop wants to wheel Falcone out, and he wants his partner’s help. 

It sends a chill down his spine that Jim doesn’t seem to care any longer whether he lives or dies. Something’s happened - something’s changed in the last few days, and Oswald doesn’t know what. There’s a cold look in Jim’s eye that he hasn’t before turned on Oswald, and it pains him to see it. 

“Jim! You’re making a mistake!” Oswald cries.

“I’m doing this for the city, not you,” Jim says to Falcone, turning his back to Oswald and Butch cuffed to the radiator. “You’re the least bad option. If I didn’t think you could take back control, I’d let you die.”

Oswald knew Jim was naive, but he didn’t think him an idiot.

“Just so we’re clear,” Jim adds.

“We’re clear,” Falcone says, and just like that the two of them have got themselves a pack.

Oswald is losing him. He can feel it.

This was one betrayal he never thought he would have to face - not like this. From a favored cop, maybe. But not his soulmate.

That dark, familiar chasm deep inside him cracks again, and Oswald hears wind rushing in his ears as it yawns open. His mother coming to possibly resent him, coming to know his sins and what he really is, was a possibility he had always known and deeply feared.

This - Jim - is new, and newly unpredictable.

Oswald throws petty excuses at Jim to free them and Jim has the gall to be cheeky about their situation. 

“You owe me a favor, Jim. You owe me!” Oswald spits out, too mad for anything else. Time is of the essence here and Jim seems to finally realize it too when they hear the Commissioner himself calling his name from down the hall. Oswald belated places his finger on the word he’d been seeking - suicidal. Because that’s what Jim is, coming in here looking lost for everything in the world, spinning out of control. He’s lost his true north, or his center, or whatever else you want to call it. But Oswald doesn’t have the time to remind him, or the mind to realize he might be the one person who can at the moment. He is thinking of nothing but himself, which he quite deserves, as the tragedy of the two of them plays out.

Jim heads for the door as Falcone brandishes a knife he’d hid in his sock - small, but it’ll do the job, and there could only be one person he’d have use for a knife for in their situation.

“Don’t kill em,” Jim tells him over his shoulder, making a face, and Falcone just smirks. Oswald stares in horror, the helplessness of his situation sinking in. 

Jim exchanges words with the commissioner, and then he hears a barrage of gunfire.It’s a small relief that the sounds continue on farther away from the room rather than in their direction. Perhaps a firefight will help clear Jim’s mind - Oswald knows he performs splendidly under pressure (much like himself - it is the quiet solitude of night that kills them). Oswald wonders if Jim enjoys hunting men, bad men, or if he thinks little of this particular talent.

When Jim returns it’s with his bumbling partner of a detective Harvey Bullock, and then the three mobsters are shepherded into an ambulance that Jim drives through Maroni’s thugs like some sort of madman.

“Get down!” Jim yells as gunfire rains down on their bus. Pity he doesn’t run over Maroni himself - Oswald would have made a point to do so had he been behind the heel.

They pull into a cold, wet warehouse that Falcone promises is secret and safe a second before that street rat, Cat, strolls into view. The doors open and Jim puts himself in front of the group on cue, as if asking to be shot first, protector that he is. Oswald feels bereft as soon as Jim takes back the hand on his arm, which hadn’t left since Jim helped him gently out of the stolen vehicle. Jim hasn’t looked at him in the eye since before he cuffed Oswald and Butch, and he still isn’t now, even if his gestures have become regretful.

And who is there to greet them but Fish herself, back from the dead, and apparently with a new band of merry street urchins flanking her sides. Oswald doesn’t know whether to laugh, or be impressed. A queen no matter her circumstances - Gotham doesn’t quite deserve her.

“I know, I know. It’s astonishing,” Fish says. “Sometimes I astonish myself.”

There’s a begrudging, lingering respect even as her newfound, smelly henchmen string him up alongside the two cops and Falcone. Butch she leaves untethered, and Oswald can only hope whatever Zsasz did to him holds through their reunion. He’s dazed and not quite all there as she takes him aside to assure him she’s back and Oswald can only hope she doesn’t cut one of his last avenues of escape. He plots, as she takes a phone call with Maroni he knew was coming. Their alliance has been known to him ever since Maroni took him upstate. 

Oswald squirms to test his restraints while Jim cozies up to Falcone and that squirt of a girl both. Isn’t he just making all sorts of friends today. The bonds are tough, but if he has enough time - and no one notices - he can get out of them. So he wisely keeps his mouth shut and ears open as Fish gives her speech about what she’s going to do next. Butch meets his eyes pitifully, before rushing off to “lie down.” There goes Plan A.

“You will die a slow, painful death on account of Butch,” Fish promises him quietly. Oswald shudders, hoping his visible fear will sate her need for vengeance in the present at least. 

In the time it takes Maroni to drive up to meet them, the sun starts to set, and the warehouse takes on an eerie glow. Fish cuts Detective Bullock free and send her various minions on errands and patrol, and when they start to gather back signaling Maroni’s imminent arrival, Oswald has a few plans in place to secure his freedom.

Turning Fish and Maroni against, each other, for one. That’s the obvious choice. Fish didn’t scheme and sacrifice for weeks on end to undo Falcone only to come under Maroni’s thumb. Oswald knows, because he now can admit he sees a kindred spirit in her.

“Miss Mooney, if I may, a brief word,” he starts, addressing her as he did back in the old days. “I know my life is forfeit. I speak not for my sake, but yours.”

“Because,” his words grow heavy with emotion he is not surprised to discover he truly feels. The ensuing look on Fish’s face shows she is not surprised either - she did help make him after all. “I still love and respect you.” 

“Kill me if you must, but keep Falcone alive,” Oswald says, beginning his lie. It was her who taught him one goes down smoother if laced with heartfelt truth. “As soon as he’s dead, Maroni has no use for you. You are simply a threat. He will kill you!”

He says this not to forewarn her into sparing Falcone, but to bait Maroni into revealing his plans for their so called relationship. And the brilliant thing is, even if Fish realizes what Oswald is after, the deed will be done.

Maroni scoffs, so Oswald presses on, eyes wild. “Why would he need another boss in town!Another rival!” That does the trick.

“That’s where you’re wrong, smart guy,” Maroni can’t help but interrupt to defend his pride. “A, she’s not a rival, because she’s not a boss. She’s an underboss.”

Fish makes a face. Still civil, but riled.

“An underboss takes orders. I don’t take orders,” she says cooly.

“I know that. We’re cool. Relax,” Maroni says, hitting a nerve.

“I’m relaxed,” Fish says, a little straighter. Out of the corner of his eye, Oswald sees that street urchin lurk through the crowd. She’s onto him too. She has a keen nose for power dynamics, apparently, likely what caught Fish’s eye.

“I don’t think you are, babes,” Maroni says. Bingo.

Fish shakes her head, tense now, coiled and ready to spring.

“Please, don’t call me babes,” she says, voice level and flat, so unlike her usual theatrical self. Oswald watches the words bounce between the two like a high stakes match, unable to help the glee rising as he sees his work take hold. His words little seeds of doubt that grow into vines that will strangle them both.

“You see? Not relaxed,” Maroni says, stepping closer to Fish, who now eyes him like prey. “Babes? Really? It’s a term of endearment.”

He backs off, recants, but only on the surface. There’s a loaded quiet that fills the warehouse and everyone is aware of it. Fish says they’re partners. He calls her babes again. 

“Guys, can you feel the buzz in the air?” Maroni starts his speech. “That’s victory, redemption, power.” He hinges this all on the death of Falcone, and Oswald can see Jim struggle in vain at that, at the idea of a new dynasty of crime taking hold so much worse than the last. The gangsters, though, they look lifted. Fish included, almost willing to let recent transgressions pass. 

So of course Maroni has to push it. His men laugh, and that buoys him even more, just enough, to spill over and get vulgar. And that, Fish can’t abide. She shoots him in the head before he can even turn around to face her. 

“I am relaxed,” Fish says, and everyone else is so still with shock it is silent for a full moment before hell breaks loose. 

Just in time.

Bullock cuts Jim and Falcon free and Oswald breaks loose before he needs to find out whether he was planning to do the same for Oswald. The three of them make a run for it and Oswald doesn’t even look to see where they’re going. All this, if anything, should only further prove to Jim that Falcone is no longer the right man for this job. He hasn’t been for a long time coming, hence the unrest of the city.

Righteous anger wells up in Oswald as he scrambles to arm himself and find a place of leverage in this whole mess. He swipes the biggest gun he can, then lies in wait. With luck, Maroni’s men will get in a few good shots before either dying or defecting, and take down Fish’s army in the process. They should be backing him - Jim should be backing him - in all this.

Not Falcone. Not Maroni. Not even Fish, who had he try, and failed. Twice. 

The goons succeed in either killing or absorbing Maroni’s men, and Oswald bites his tongue as he waits for the perfect moment. It comes when they manage to round up the detective duo and Falcone and bring them to Fish, who accepts Falcone’s de facto letter of resignation easily and all seems about to come to a very anti-climatic end.

The perfect moment to charge in, guns blazing, taking down as many as he can manage and sending the rest running off in panic. When Oswald runs out of bullets he trades one gun for another, and yells after Fish. He hears tires screech in the distance and knows Jim’s taken off with Falcone. Fine. He doesn’t need them around for this. 

Oswald finds Fish out on the rooftop but he loses his gun when she comes at him with a pipe. There’s no talking his way out of this one, and frankly, he doesn’t really want to. 

He pushes back, overpowering her long enough to grab the pipe from her, and he swings. It feels good. No holds barred, he levels another blow, until he loses the pipe and they grapple. Fish comes at him with an almost feral scream, and they struggle until they come to the roof’s edge. She pushes, and Oswald looks over his shoulder at the glittering city below. His city. And what a great idea she’s given him.

The two of them grab at the other’s necks, choking as they sway in a clumsy dance beside the roof’s edge. 

Then Butch shows up with a loaded gun.

“Butch! About time,” Oswald cries, hoping for the best. If he doesn’t shoot, it will at least anger and distract Fish long enough he might wriggle out of her hold.

“Oh really?” Fish asks, squeezing even tighter.

“Do as I say! Shoot her!” Oswald yells, over Fish’s competing “What are you doing? Drop him!”

And Butch starts to cry. Tears up in earnest as his face turns red and he pulls at his hair, gun still aimed at the two of them. 

They scream their orders at him, and Butch finally shoots Fish, but down low, in an obviously not fatal wound. Then he turns the gun on Oswald and shoots him in the gut, missing anything vital but stunning him all the same. Oswald drops, buying for time, as Fish screams and cries and Butch comes to her side. He bites down and swallows the pain - pain, he can handle, but losing yet again when he’s so close is something he will not abide. Oswald rolls over and grabs a wooden plank, closer than the pipe, and sneaks up behind the bawling pair. 

A hard swing and satisfying thwack silences Butch’s pathetic apologies, and then it’s just his and Fish face to face.

“Goodbye, Fish,” Oswald yells, tears in his eyes.

“It’s all good,” she says, voice level. He charges, and she goes over the roof this time.

Oswald’s eyes go wide, his jaw drops, as he takes in with certain clarity of what he’s done. Fish drops into the river below, gone. Just like that. Her screams turn into nothing.

Fish is dead.

Maroni’s dead. Falcone is out. 

The water stills. 

Oswald throws Butch a backward glance and his heartbreak cements the fact - the reality. Fish is gone and Oswald is all that’s left. He is the last one standing. Adrenaline surges through him, lifting him up. He climbs up the side of the barrier, heart thumping.

“I am the king of Gotham,” he voices aloud for the first time, still winded. It’s thrilling. He pulls himself upright and takes in his city, shrouded in the darkness of the night and looking every bit as grand as he imagined - from up high at the city’s edge, Oswald has the perfect vantage point to announce he has arrived. Finally.

“I’m the king of Gotham!” he yells, overcome with joyous laughter. He announces his hard won, bloody victory again, and again. “I’m the king of Gotham!”

.

The comedown is a little chilling, all things considered. 

Butch finally pulls himself together, a shell of his former self but a good servant all the same. He seems to accept that Fish is gone, and he is Oswald’s servant once again. With gun-toting muscle by his side, it’s easy to rally the rest of the goons, who Oswald sends scattered into the winds with news that the old guard has fallen and Gotham’s underworld has a new king. 

The moon starts to fall and Oswald knows it’s only a matter of time before the sun comes up and heralds a new day.

News of Oswald’s rise to power spreads fast - and if he’s paid a few messengers to stir up rumors that skew the night’s events in a narrative toward his favor, who can blame him? With Falcone’s hasty and disgraceful exit, people are desperate to know what comes next, and Oswald does a splendid job of stepping into the spotlight if he says so himself.

He’s had moves in place for weeks, so Oswald takes his throne without a minute to spare, leaving no time or space for a power vacuum to further shake the city.

The citizens of Gotham have him to thank for the quick stability.

A less inspired man might have taken the reins with a stranglehold on the city, raising taxes to drive home the point of his power and shaking down businesses in districts newly his.

Not Oswald. 

Oswald promises his new kingdom freedom, and they are thankful for it. He gives three months of reprieve in taxes, renewing the entrepreneurial spirit of the city. Anyone who believes they have the wits and grit to make something of themselves in Gotham’s underworld is welcome to prove their mettle. Businesses flourish under Oswald’s reign. An optimistic fervor takes hold, and this - hope - is what finally kills the old guard.

Anyone with deep-seated loyalties to Falcone, or Maroni, or even Fish decides to lay low, to hold their tongue as the new, the once undertrodden upstarts begin their climb up the ladder. 

It helps, of course, that Oswald drags a key number of these old loyalists to his seat of power for a very public display of absolution and execution.

There is no contesting Oswald’s position; he makes this very clear, with every hired gun in the city firmly in his pocket and publicly by his side.

Meanwhile, his other half doesn’t fare nearly as well.

Oswald hears Jim’s been demoted and his partner’s been sacked - or, well, given leave. It’s the same thing, as he’s traded in his badge for a bar and Jim is directing traffic.

It’s only a matter of time before Jim comes asking for help to be reinstated as a detective, and Oswald is ready to do just that. He knows exactly what must happen for Jim to win back his place, but as the days go by and his soulmate’s figure never once darkens his doorway, Oswald’s affections grow cold.

He won’t cry over Jim Gordon, he refuses. 

There is no good reason Oswald must suffer loneliness for all his trouble, so he does his damnedest to keep that yawning abyss of melancholy at bay by throwing himself into his work, and telling himself he is mad at Jim Gordon, not heartbroken. 

He learns that he is not a prodigy of a businessman quite quickly; for all he’s picked up, he still makes a few mistakes. But he learns, and corrects, and quickly, since he has been doing nothing but work, avoiding even his mother most days, as he tries not to crawl back to Jim Gordon and ask what he can do to win back his affections.

He tells himself he doesn’t miss Jim at all, because he misses him so desperately he won’t survive if he admits it. 

All he wants - really the only thing - is to hear Jim say it too. That he misses him. That he’s sorry, if Oswald is entertaining his wilder fantasies. He’s not so crazy he believes Jim will apologize for backing Falcone instead of him, but he wants his soulmate to return, to confide in him, and perhaps share a drink and conversation. That’s all he wants for starters, and things can develop from there.

So if he’s a bit petty when Jim finally - finally - comes waltzing in for that favor Oswald predicted would come weeks ago, who can blame him. 

Oswald agrees immediately to help reinstate Jim, but on a whim decides to ask that he collect the debt his henchman just alerted him of. It’s just bait that Oswald is dangling, and he doesn’t really expect Jim to bite. He doesn’t really care, to be honest. It’s not important to him specifically that Jim dirty his hands on this job, in order to gain favor with Oswald. 

No, he just wants something. Something. Anything, really. Some small sign of remorse, small but sincere.

But as usual, Jim decides to take the hard way out, and engages that hothead Ogden in a shootout.

And then everything goes to hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and taking a chance on a wip hahaha 😂 idk how ive gotten this far but this ship is basically taken over my life


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof, here it is, finally.
> 
> The original plan was to follow canon through S4 and I had vague ideas for how it would go through S2 and S3, but I’ve since decide to cap it partway through S2 at a place where it feels like it could be an actual ending, between Jim and Oswald most importantly, but without getting into the whole plot of Indian Hill and the crazy science of soulmates. Maybe it will be for another time. But first I must take a break once I finish this fic to write some sappy post-series Old Tired Men gobblepot fic
> 
> thanks everyone who's been reading! comments make my day asldjalks

Jim has to wonder where exactly it all went wrong, and what part he’s done to deserve it, because he’s staring down the barrel of a gun that’s trained on him by a woman he used to love and not that long ago thought he’d marry.

Barbara says he must have dreamt of killing her, eggs him on with some sort of maniacal glee, and Jim wonders how they ever thought they knew anything of each other. 

He could almost laugh at the monumental irony of it, because didn’t he just try giving up love, claiming it would make him mad?

.

.

Don Falcone walks Jim out onto Barbara’s balcony to tell him a nice story about a knife and announce that for all Jim’s trouble, he’s going to leave town and take a nice retirement down south. 

Jim really should return his keys.

“Gotham needs a lawman now, not a criminal like me,” Falcone says, and Jim tries to see the wisdom in it. He wonders if that’s what he still is, a man of the law, all things considered, then remembers that the law in Gotham isn’t quite the black and white ideal he has in his mind. He turns the story about his dad over in his head and wonders whether his memories of him are affected by rose colored glasses.

Perhaps Falcone is right, and a correction is needed against the rupture of polite society’s fabric after the Waynes’ death. A return to law and order in a most absolute sense.

Which meant he was wrong in trying to save Falcone - just like he’s been wrong in so many other things.

“A strong lawman,” Falcone says with a knowing gaze, and Jim can only scoff.

“You’re looking at me?” Jim tries to make it sound like a joke, but the truth of the matter is he would have jumped to fill this role just weeks ago, before....everything. Everything that began with Cobblepot. As it stands, now, Jim’s seen what ugly things hide under his own mask of civility, and he is not as righteous as he once thought. Something, the city, or someone, has corrupted him, and the rot’s sunk in too deep to cut out.

“That’s you Jim, I know it in my bones,” Falcone says. But he’s just an old man who’s leaving the city. Then he gives Jim the knife, and if not for the sentimental little story about his dad he would’ve have half a mind to chuck it off the balcony they were standing on.His dad - that brings to mind a call to duty. That call to protect, to defend. It’s in his blood. 

He wonders if he should really be surprised his father was so close with a gangster. He was a native of Gotham, after all, and he supposes his dad knew the city better than he does. He’s trying, now, to learn and love it for what it is. He can’t help but love it for what it is, even on the days he hates it. He supposes that’s in his blood too.

After all, love is about acceptance, isn’t it?

“Point of the story, Jim, your father was the most honest man I knew. But he carried a knife.”

So maybe whatever’s gotten into him isn’t pure rot.

That weighs on him for a while, and it’s not until several days later that the thing Falcone said before that really hits him, as he turns the blade over in his hand while he laments the loss of his job.

“A knife’s a good friend when you have no other.”

There’s nothing like the loss of something to remind you how much it really means to you.

When Barbara left him, Jim felt cold in his bed. Bitter that he was right he couldn’t share his life fully, and that she hadn’t believed him. And in that newfound quiet in her abandoned apartment, it had never been so clear that they’d already started growing apart, maybe had never grown as close as he told himself they had.

And with his job gone - he aches.

It’s not as bad as it could be, Jim thinks. He’s directing traffic, and he knows this is meant to be a slap in the face, but at least he’s still a cop. He realizes this when he imagines quitting and finds himself psychically reeling with the idea of it. This is who he is, who he needs and wants to be, and if this is the small part he will be allowed to play to bring justice to the city, he’ll take it.

Who is he kidding - he’s half staying out of spite. 

At least, the spite is what drives him.

He’s the only one who really knows how much he needs this title, this identity, and why he clings to it, but to the rest of the department, to City Hall and all the Powers That Be, this is a giant fuck you, you’re not getting rid of me. They know they can’t fire him for doing his job, so Jim plans to rise back to his ranks whatever it takes. 

It’s just that he keeps telling himself he’ll do it by the book, but instead he finds himself putting on his suit instead of his uniform, and paying Oswald Cobblepot a visit.

Oswald - god - it’s only in his absolute loneliest moments that he lets himself admit what that particular loss meant to him. Means to him. And, continuing in the spirit of honesty, he’s had a hell of a lot of lonely moments since the whole mob war debacle that cost him his detective’s badge. 

Mob war - Oswald was half right. Fish’s gone, Maroni’s gone, Falcone is gone.

Oswald’s the king of the underworld, now, and he sits at the head of the table smug with the idea that all these loyal subjects have come to pay their respects. 

It’s a side of Oswald Jim has suspected but had yet to see, and unease has him slowing his steps as he approaches. Then Oswald spots him, nervous at first, before standing and greeting him with that incandescent look that isn’t so different from all the times before, when he was still playing double agent and had no one to confide in but Jim.

It makes Jim wonder how much of it is the truth. 

It makes him ache with self pity at how much he wants what they could have been. What he should have stopped wanting once he realized his feelings were only the side effect of an inexplicable bond that he had no control over.

Except in his lonely, street cop days, he’s done a fair bit of reading. Finished those studies he borrowed from Nygma, and did a bit of research at the library as well. Breaking the bond would be more trouble than it’s worth - Barbara should have been proof of that - and the lurid case studies he looked at were as good of evidence as any that trying would only leave one or both of them mentally and emotionally broken with little hope of repair.

Suppressing their bond, not letting these invisible lines of fate tie them any closer than it already had, was a more temporary possibility, and one Jim hadn’t found much literature on as it seemed like no one in the whole history of humanity had any interest in not becoming closer to their soulmate once identified. Not willingly, anyhow, which seemed to say a lot to him about the impairment of judgement when it came to soulmates. 

Except, it’s actually an innocuous, general line from the introduction of a condensed What to Know type book that really sticks with Jim. It said that science on soulmates is so tenuous, because there’s really nothing scientific about it. Haven’t you ever met a someone you befriended quickly? Don’t you have a good friend you quickly “clicked” with once you knew them a little? It’s like that.

The book had been surprisingly devoid of the usual platitudes about fate and destiny and cosmic plans, which in fact was what made it appeal to Jim.

With such a simplification of soulmates stuck in his mind, he read the rest of his books in a different light. Started to wonder whether his impression that Oswald had tried to manipulate him through the bond was just his jumping to conclusions. It was true Oswald had gone behind his back and threaded Delaware despite his promising no one would get hurt, that was undeniable, but he could hardly take that as the basis of a case against Oswald using him to some greater, yet-foretold end.

The fact was never clearer than the sight before him: Oswald had clawed his way to the top after all. He sits at the head of the table, proud, and he got there without an iota of Jim’s help when it came down to it. 

“Jim! Come on in,” Oswald says with too much enthusiasm, a little drunk on power. “My dear old friend.”

“We need to talk,” Jim says meaningfully. Oswald sobers up enough to clear the room, though Selina Kyle is here and refuses to leave. Whatever. Jim’s started thinking of her as a somewhat permanent, neutral fixture in Gotham.

He looks Oswald over again, and it reminds him all too much of how happy he seemed when Jim first paid him a visit at his club to ask a favor. 

Jim isn’t the only one affected by this bond. Oswald likes him - and has been unexpectedly courteous at letting Jim set the pace. Later, he will wonder whether these soft thoughts were a result of the bond, of being close to this man to whom he feels a magnetic pull, but in the moment itself it is jarring. 

Jim comes to ask for help getting his position back, flippantly thinking Oswald would agree on account of it being a possible benefit that he has a detective in his pocket. Perhaps he overestimated his own value, or the nature of their relationship, or even Oswald’s character. Because what comes is not easy agreement but a point of contention - who owes who? Jim scrambles for a poor excuse and he can see from one moment to the other Oswald switches into his shrewd businessman mode and suddenly Jim finds himself on the other end of a bad deal. 

“Ogden Barker,” Oswald says. “He owes me some money.”

So Jim’s to be a debt collector - even among the ranks of criminals that’s low. He’s a lackey, and now everyone will see him as nothing but Penguin’s stooge.

He’s not sure whether it’s hurt pride or the principle of the thing that gets to him the most, but turmoil builds steadily as he carries out the job - he has no choice, if he ever wants to make detective again - and Barker doesn’t make it easy. In the chase, he ends up shooting the man dead. It’s pure self defense.

Harvey once told him that all the good things he knows he’ll do after that one bad thing doesn’t wipe out that stain. You still did a bad thing. But Bruce makes it sound like that’s just the price of business here in Gotham - if he’s not willing to stomach doing a bad thing, just so he can keep his hands clean, maybe the city doesn’t need a holier-than-thou, badge-less nobody anyway. Or maybe it’s just what he deserves.

Jim hasn’t been in Gotham long enough to know what exactly that’ll mean for Barker’s organization, or the criminal world in general, but it must mean he’s changed when he spares a moment to wonder whether this will help or hurt keep the peace. Oswald would know.

By the time he returns the money to Oswald’s his anger’s boiled over, and he lashes out at the Penguin claiming he set him up. He knew Jim would have to shoot the man, and what that’ll do to his reputation underground, and how that guilt puts him squarely in Penguin’s hands.

He’s not sure Oswald understands how mad he is, because Oswald just assures him 

it’s all been cleaned up. He has nothing to worry, he’s getting his job back, record squeaky clean.

Just like that, Loeb retires. 

Jim doesn’t know what Oswald said to him, and he doesn’t want to know. When he’d threatened the ex-commissioner with his daughter’s secret, all that had gotten him was Harvey’s file.

Or maybe he’s just not as ruthless a negotiator (he doesn’t want to know).

Captain Essen gets made Commissioner for the time being, and he gets his badge back immediately. He’s so zeroed in on this that he’s only half paying attention to the fact that the mayor is a missing person, and some economic development newcomer is giving a speech in his place.

Jim steps up to Essen, and asks about Harvey.

“He has his job back too, if he wants it,” she tells him.

Jim smiles.

.

Jim finds Harvey in a bar, but he’s not drinking. Been sober, in fact, ever since he quit the force. Engaged even. He seems so happy it seems a crime to try to pull him away. 

But Gotham needs good cops - strong lawmen, in Falcone’s words - and Jim knows Harvey is one of the best. Scottie Mullens seems to know it too, because she glares daggers at Jim and tells him to go away. 

Jim commiserates with Essen over it later; Harvey may be gone, but neither of them are quitting. They wouldn’t be themselves without the force.

It doesn’t take long with his badge back before he sees the typical level of crazy - hell, even directing traffic for a few days he had run into some nut job declaring himself some supervillain in an outfit who they ended up chucking into Arkham.

But no this is different - there’s a bus load of cheerleaders - literally - being held in a hostage situation as some Arkham escapees douse the whole thing in gasoline. They shoot, and the whole vehicle will go up in flames.

As luck, or slippery fingers, would have it, the lunatic in charge of lighting up the bus can’t work a lighter, and Jim’s there, punching him out before commandeering the bus himself to drive out and away from the spreading fire.

“Everybody okay?” Jim finally asks, out of breath more from the adrenaline rush than the workout, and too tired for any answer other than ‘yes.’

Things only get crazier from there, because when it rains it pours in Gotham City, and the next call Jim gets is from Barbara.

Barbara, who was sent to Arkham after her stint in the hospital where they declared that her problems weren’t physical at all but psychological. Only she doesn’t sound like the soulless husk he last saw her as.

“I’m fabulous,” she says. “How about you?”

And there she is in the precinct - almost dressed as her old self, even her hair is done. Jim gives chase only to get beaten up in an alley - big guy, friend of hers from Arkham, judging by the uniform. Not that it helps because when Jim comes to again, they’re gone. 

And by the time he gets back to the precinct, it’s bloodshed.

The Arkham escapees, the attention grabbing “Maniax” - they got to Essen.

“Boss, boss stay with me,” Jim says, frantically trying to staunch the blood, feeling the life seep out of her beneath his hands. He can’t help the horrible feeling that it should have been him, lying, bleeding out on the floor. Instead he was lured out of the precinct while it got shot up and how else is he supposed to feel if not at the center of it all?

“Please.” He pleads with her but it’s too late.

“It’s a new day, Jim,” she says. And then the light goes out of Sarah Essen’s eyes.

No one notices, but Jim’s pretty sure he’s in shock. He’s not sure how much time passes but then Bruce Wayne is here, and he’d seen what happened.

He’s here as a friend.

“The last time I saw you, I was very hard on you. I wanted to apologize,” Bruce says, eyes shiny with emotion, though Jim is pretty sure he’s the one who wants to cry. There’s something about Bruce’s innocence, even after everything he’s been through, everything he’s seen, that lays over Jim’s wounded heart like a salve. He gives the detective a sincere hug, and Jim gingerly tries to return it. “You’ve been a very good friend,” Bruce assures him. Jim’s not sure he’s been a very good anything.

But Harvey comes back in the aftermath, engagement broken, and Jim thinks wonders how exactly the scales are supposed to balance out in the grander scheme, whether he’s a bad person for looking at the return as a silver lining.

“We are who we are, right,” Harvey says in response to the condolences. 

The maudlin moment comes and goes. Jim has a job to do and it’s one he takes more than seriously in his quest to keep Gotham safe. Sarah Essen’s death will not be in vain. 

So he puts his anger to good use and lets it drive him, even lectures his fellow cops about it because someone has to. Jim might not be the one they want to hear it from, but he’s gotta try.

“Sarah Essen was killed with nine of your brothers in this house - in our house! Their murder stood right there and he laughed at us. Never forget that,” he tells them. He goes for forceful, but he wonders if he just comes off sounding sad.

On the news, from one channel to the next, the horrific footage from inside the precinct replays practically on loop. They - the Maniacs - wanted a 24-hour newscycle, and they’ve got it. They’re terrorists, plain and simple, and their ringleader seems to be the Jerome Valeska kid from the circus matricide. And then there’s Barbara tied into this somehow. Apart from that they’ve got no leads, which only makes Jim madder.

“At some point we gotta go see Penguin,” Harvey says.

He’d really rather not.

“Why would he break Jerome out of Arkham? Or attack the GCPD?” Jim asks, trying to dissuade the notion. But Harvey’s a better detective than that.

“He wouldn’t, but that weasle’s running things now, if there’s chatter he’d know about it,” Harvey rightly explains.

“I’ll think about it,” Jim replies, stalling for time, even though moments ago he was brimming with indignant impatience. A lead will turn up.

“Jim-“

“I’ll think about it!”

The truth is, he’s craved company constantly in the aftermath, and feels ashamed for it. The mention of Oswald, and the reminder that he hasn’t got anyone, only makes it worse.

Jim knocks on Lee’s door to check that she’s okay. She hadn’t been in when the precinct was stormed, arriving in from her lunch break just in time to see Jim watch Essen die, and call time of death. 

They make awkward small talk, Lee unsure what Jim wants from her ever since he told it’s best they stop dating, and Jim feeling stupid for even showing up. He doesn’t even have a case in hand to use as an excuse for coming down to her lab. 

He’s about to duck out when Lee calls after him. So he stops, hand on the door.

“I’m attending this gala - it’s a charity thing I helped organize, for the children’s medical center. Maybe you should come,” she says, and Jim has to keep from sighing audibly, because that sounds like the last thing he wants to do.

“It might do you some good,” she continues, “surround yourself with a bit of altruism-“

He snorts. “More like tax breaks.”

“It’s for the kids,” she says, emphasizing the last word with a wry a smile. 

Jim finds himself smiling back, if only for a second. Remind himself of the good of the city - who it is he’s fighting for. It’s not a bad idea.

“Hey Jim.”

Jim turns to see Harvey coming down the stairs, and nods to Lee before walking up to meet him.

“We’ve got a lead,” Harvey says, and it fills Jim with relief.

.

They’d managed to track down the blind fortune teller, Jerome’s father, but when Jim and Harvey get to his apartment, he’s dead.

Killed moments before, Jim’s pretty sure, right when they were at the door.

Harvey gets gassed as he’s checking the dingo and then Jim’s going down too, just as he hears Jerome himself.

“That’s cute,” he says, taking Jim’s gun - they grapple, and Jim chokes him - or at least he think he does.

“You killed Sarah Essen, now I’m gonna kill you,” he growls, half out of his mind.

“Don’t shoot him.” Jim turns to see someone masked, then there’s a blow and everything goes black.

They’re long gone when he comes to, but there’s a pile of letters Jim is pretty sure were fake, maybe even placed by the assailants while he and Harvey were out. 

There’s just nothing about the self-serving old man he pegged the guy for that screams guilt - not for helping his son cover the murder, nor helping put him away. He wouldn’t have cooked up this strange scheme to unleash his mentally ill, estranged spawn onto the city. He wouldn’t have gotten anything out of it. No, there’s something bigger - stranger - at play here, and the dad’s a decoy.

Harvey claps Jim on the shoulder back at the precinct, because he reads Jim better than Jim lets on to even himself sometimes. Harvey is the one guy who has his back when the whole world is against him, and Jim is more than glad he’s back. He cherishes their hard-won camaraderie, which is for life, even if it’s nothing like the lightning bolt moment of a soul bond.

Even if he’s saying stupid things like the bitter, bitter truth.

“For the record, I knew Essen way longer than you. She saved my ass hundreds of times,” Harvey says. “You really should go him.”

He means Penguin, and Jim is humbled, Bruce’s words coming to mind again as well. He agrees.

“First thing tomorrow we’ll go see Penguin. You’re right. He’s got his ears on the street,” Jim says, hoping Oswald can shed some light on the Maniacs. 

But it doesn’t come to that, because Lee is on the phone, saying Barbara is here, along with Jerome.

.

By the time Jim rolls up to the gala location unis are parked outside on tentative alert. It’s tense, but disorganized.

“Hostage situation, a magician just killed the deputy mayor,” one of the cops tells him when he asks. Jim’s frustration surges, because he’s still one step behind, and now there’s another body. It’s made worse knowing Lee’s in there, like it’s somehow his fault this is happening. But that’s not something he dwells over, it’s not something he even lets himself really register, because he’s on duty and doesn’t have the capacity for self pity when there are people he can still save, people he needs to protect.

“It’s Jerome Valeska, the same man that killed Commissioner Essen,” Jim explains. “Who’s in charge here?”

“I guess you are,” the cop says. Fine. The phone rings, Lee. Except when Jim picks up, it’s Jerome.

“Are you outside? Oh goodie,” comes that carnival voice. 

One of the uniformed cops pulls over a screen, and Jim cranes his neck to watch along with them what’s happening inside. It’s like melodrama, an old black and white silent flick full of camp and caricatures. 

Jim watches Theo Galavan stand up to the man and takes the moment for what it is - a distraction.

“Get your men, we’re going in,” he calls out. Except - the cops won’t follow. What good is calling the shots if he can’t lead, he thinks, mentally piecing together plan B when he spots that familiar street kid across the road.

With Selina, Jim sneaks in just in time to watch the terrorist make his demands. Keeping as light on his feet as he can, he moves around back and gets his hands on Bruce before he can do something stupid - like trade himself as a hostage.

“I will not let him hurt Alfred!” Bruce bites out, tears stinging his eyes.

And Jim gets that.

“Okay well then, get him this,” Jim says, hiding his gun under Bruce’s jacket.

This is far from the playbook, and sure as hell isn’t protocol.

But that’s the thing about Jim - he’ll get called a goody two shoes, a stickler for the rules, hall monitor what have you, and he’ll let them, because what he’s always known, deep down, is that he’s a rebel. 

And Gotham’s a good place to be a rebel, because in Gotham, greed and corruption are the norm, and those things will only ever hurt people. Because deeper down, underneath the rebellion, Jim just wants to help. He’s desperate for it. To be of service. To be worth something.

Bruce, clearly afraid, makes it across to Alfred, who gets the picture, gets the gun, and then there’s a shootout.

“Drop the knife!” Jim warns, because then Jerome has Bruce.

Jim’s about to pray for a miracle, but one comes as if it had been scripted.

“I said enough!” Galavan booms, rising from his crumpled position having recovered from a blow to the head. And then he stabs Jerome. Shock pans across the magicians face, and he goes down where Galavan leads him, blood burbling out with his last words too quiet to catch. Jim has other concerns anyway - like Barbara, who’s disappearing down the trap door, leaving him to stand like a fool alone on stage.

Jim goes to Bruce.

“You were very brave, you saved a lot of lives,” he tells him, and remembers that he is still just a child.

The Galavan fellow swings by the precinct later, where Jim is burying himself in paperwork to avoid going back to an empty home, if he can even call his sublet hovel that, and Jim recognizes a man still riding the high of adrenaline.

Regardless, it reminds Jim there are good people left in Gotham. More than he thinks. It’s time the tape came off Essen’s office.

.

“Ten-hut!” comes a booming voice at the precinct entrance. Jim looks out at the backlit figure as he enters. Broad. Bald. Military bearing. “That’s right. I’m your new boss.”

Jim gets to watch as the giant figure cuts through the foyer and makes essentially the same speech he tried to days ago after Essen’s death. This time, people listen. Rank counts for something after all; he knew this when he asked for the union president position. Perhaps he is still inexperienced in power. Whether that’s so obvious. He wonders how far Falcone’s reach really is.

“Anyone who’s not ashamed and angry should resign right now,” Captain Barnes says, goading the room. “Huh. Some of you are lying to yourself. I’ve got your files right here.”

He starts naming names, piquing everyone’s interest. Then he throws a curveball.

“You’re not police - you’re lowlife criminals.”

Jim is surprised. And curious, brows furrowed. Barnes flat out arrests the handful of corrupt cops, who are really just the tip of the iceberg, and Jim wonders whether this will really work. There’s the matter of them getting pardoned with not even a slap on the wrist - apology more like - and the message it sends anyway. Gotham’s gotten to him, he thinks wryly, he wasn’t always so cynical. 

Still, he has to hope, naively, that if this works, why haven’t they done it sooner? Not so cynical after all. Pragmatic, hopefully, and not just deluding himself.

Barnes singles him out soon enough, and Jim follows him into the captain’s office readily, if a bit on edge. 

“I agree with every word, sir,” Jim tells him, wanting to make his stance clear, but intent on warning him all the same. The way Harvey did for him. Well, not quite so colorfully.

“You a sycophant Gordon?”

“No, sir,” he says with a smile that’s more grimace than anything. Barnes tells Jim he’s read up on him.

“You’re a troublemaker.” Not a zealous idealist then.

“Yes sir,” he says, owning up to it without remorse.

“You’re my second in command,” Barnes tells him next, and that has him straightening up immediately with the sense of a mission he can execute. Feels good, he has to admit.

“We’re a bit short handed,” Jim warns his new captain. If he thinks he’s arrested all the criminals in the precinct, he’s in for quite the rude awakening. He tries to give Barnes fair warning, and is rather pleased to see the man doesn’t expect what he’s trying to come easy.

Were he a more calculating man, Jim would have been happy just to have the right kind of leadership in place to support his ends. But despite Jim’s record with authority, he respects it. He thinks authority needs to be earned, through upholding the high ideals any institution stands for. And he respects that symbolism greatly. 

So he comes out of the meeting optimistic, and when Harvey tells him he hopes Jim told Barnes he’d made a huge mistake, Jim has to try not to smile

“I don’t think he did,” Jim says lightly, ready for Harvey’s signature cynicism, more token than anything now, before he gets ready to do the right thing anyway.

“Come on, Jim, we've seen his type come and go,” Harvey said, like he’s forgotten Jim is one of them. “Idealists, always looking to walk the straight line Gotham doesn't have straight lines, it's got twists and turns and dead ends.”

“Yeah,” Jim replies. “But it doesn't have to be that way.”

.

Jim finds himself staring into his own eyes - his graduation photo, in his dress uniform - the next day, hoping Barnes didn’t call him down to the police academy just to take a stroll down memory lane.

“You’re a warrior, so am I,” Barnes said. “But you can’t keep up with a team of young cops.”

Of course, Jim’s knee-jerk reaction is to prove he can. But he realizes Barnes means this to be a recruitment trip and cautiously follows. He sees the value in the strategy. The need, really. But he can’t quite help feel they’re all so....young. It puts him on a protective mode instinctively, and he has to remind himself that in no time at all, they’ll no longer be civilians either. Who is he to stand in the way of their mission?

They get to test drive the new cadets soon enough, and it’s a high profile case at that.

Gotham’s been holding a rush special elections since Aubrey James’s disappearance has turned up no leads, and one of the candidates, Janice Caufield, was stabbed right in her office. Multiple times.

The blood at the crime scene is something to behold, and the body’s a sorry sight. It’s crazy - or meant to look it - and Jim is stunned to disbelief when he hears one of the witnesses describe Oswald.

Their best bet is that the killer is is after candidates, so GCPD heads over to Hobbs next, only to find Victor Zsasz having already had his way with the campaigners inside. In the shootout, the hitman gets away. Another piece of evidence that points to Oswald.

It’s that mounting sense of unease that has Jim running off to pay him a visit as soon as he’s able to, alone. He knows he probably shouldn’t, like this comes off as a warning, but that’s what it is. He owes Oswald that much.

It’s not until he crosses past the threshold of the doorway that he realizes this visit here might be his last - that this could be a goodbye.

The GCPD is rebuilding, and that’s going to help reshape Gotham. There’ll be no more need for official order to tangle with the twisted rules of the underworld. 

Jim will have no need to continue to work with Oswald.

(Is that what getting rid of the candidates had been about? They didn’t strike Jim as overly committed to anti-corruption.)

(Is work the only relationship he needs to have with Oswald? Wouldn’t this, in fact, make it easier to- no.)

“You killed Caufield, we have a witness,” is what Jim says instead, approaching cautiously.

Oswald looks....wretched. 

It’s what he should expect from someone who’s just murdered in cold blood, isn’t it? Someone who isn’t a psychopath. Jim’s seen the shock and guilt after crimes of passion; he’s seen the cold disgust after a beating gone too far in rage, the utter torment wracking through a person’s body after self defense turned to manslaughter. That’s not quite going on here.

“Not now,” Oswald snaps, with visible effort. He’s been drinking.

Regret.

“It’s complicated, ok,” Oswald bites out. He wants Jim to leave, and for the first time, it occurs to Jim that he’s never seen Oswald not welcome him with open arms, happy with his company. He feels wounded in a way he didn’t expect, as he steps even closer, and wonders whether it’s the bond, whether it’s in sympathy, or just self pity.

“We’re under new leadership,” he tells Oswald, needing to see his reaction, to learning this is the last time. He must have known this day was coming. “No more deals, no more favors.”

“You came alone! Why?” Oswald demands, riling up to jeer. He brings up Ogden Barker, how Jim shot - no, killed him. Over a debt - Jim doesn’t let him finish, because he crosses that last step over to Oswald’s side of the table, leaning down as he practically hauls the man up by his collar, and kisses him.

There’s a thud as Oswald drops back into his seat, Jim unsure when he let go, and he’s not sure which one of them is more stunned. 

The next thing he does is even stupider. He runs.

.

Jim gets back to the precinct, still reeling from the kiss, just in time to hear Barnes declare Penguin enemy number one. 

The captain leads a lead on Penguin’s count house where they bag a hefty $2 million and Jim doesn’t feel a shred of remorse doing his job, but he knows he’s going to have to unpack that unease of his later. 

“There’s a place called the Merc,” Jim tells the captain. “Sells half the heavy weapons in town. But they haven’t been hit because they pay off half the City Council.”

And, yeah, maybe Jim wants to see whether Barnes will put his money where his mouth is, wants to see whether there’s some politician he’s afraid to piss off. But Barnes heads for the weaponry no questions asked, and Jim starts to see hope they’ll clean up this city yet. 

It’ll be thankless work for sure, but he didn’t get into this line of work for the thanks.

The thought sticks with him when Galavan comes by later, having made up his mind to run for mayor. The suspicious timing isn’t even half the reason Jim turns him down when he comes to ask for Jim’s endorsement, calling Jim a symbol of hope. He’s learned the hard way not to let flattery get to his head.

“No, I don’t do endorsements,” he says, trying to find a polite way about it. It doesn’t feel right to tango with politics. He wants the GCPD to stand on its own two feet, and it’ll need a lot of work rebuilding. But if he starts shaking hands with politicians and mobsters left and right to get that help, it’ll just end up in the same place it was stuck in before. This is something they need to do in-house.

It feels like Jim’s only just made that decision when his world comes crashing down with guilt anew and they lose one of the cadets, Garrett.

A series of arsons have bloomed across the city, with the only thing in common being they’re technically Wayne properties. So he and Harvey stake out what they expect will be the next place to get hit, and run into a woman in a fireproof suit handling a seriously loaded flamethrower. Bridgit Pike, according to Selina, who’s turning out to be quite the informant. He promised to talk her down, but he can see it’s not going to work no matter what he gives, and the situation doesn’t warrant for giving much.

As it happens, the suit malfunctions. She takes herself down in a column of flames, but not without getting Garrett too. That’s two lives on him and nothing to show for it, and it sends Jim on one of his spirals that has him questioning all of his methods.

And why shouldn’t he question them? Out of everything he’s tried - and he’s tried a lot - what results has he gotten around here? Maybe going it alone isn’t the right thing to do. Maybe Bruce was right in this respect as well - Bruce, one of the ordinary citizens of Gotham he’s meant to protect - it’s their interest he should be heeding, isn’t it? Maybe sometimes Jim just has to eat his pretty morals and do the wretched thing in order to get results. 

He turns to Galavan, and promises his endorsement in return for the full support of City Hall. They need resources; they need to be putting their trained officers toward protecting this city, not throwing cadets who’ve not even graduated into the fray without any preparation. 

“I promise you’ll have whatever you need,” Galavan says, sounding every bit the politician already.

The promise of what’s to come doesn’t lessen his guilt any, and Jim takes it out on a firebug they’re pressing for information the next day. The cadets tailing him say they’ll have to report him for beating on a witness, and honestly he’ll probably be happier if they do. They should get to keep their principles, no matter what it is Jim has to sell himself to. 

So he takes the reprimand from Barnes, and he takes the grief from Selina.

What he wasn’t expecting was for her to say that Oswald was behind these too.

He points out the oddity of it to Harvey, who doesn’t seem to find it as strange as Jim does. 

Galavan comes in soon enough, asking for protection. Says he declined an alliance with The Penguin, that it was he who reached out to Galavan, and now he fears for his life.

Dent already has an arrest warrant for Oswald Cobblepot, as well as warrants for search and seizure on all his properties. Judge Turnbull has granted special powers to the Mayor’s Office - which is as good as Galavan’s, seeing as he’s uncontested - and this, well it’s martial law. It’s meant to be reserved for the direst of emergencies - wartime, as in, a literal war on home ground. They’re enacting curfew, and going door to door.

But Jim seems to be the only one in the room who thinks they’re going too far, and it doesn’t escape Galavan’s notice.

“Just remember, detective,” he says. “You came to me.”

And that sounds like a gotcha if Jim’s ever heard one, his deal with the devil coming to collect already.

Criminals, especially the smart ones, like to brag, and right now Galavan sounds like a gloating criminal who thinks he’s got away with the game. But what is it that he’s hiding?

Oswald ordering arson, when all he’s wanted to do is build an empire from within the rubble, makes no sense to begin with. His threatening candidates with death, Galavan included, if they don’t bargain with him seems even more bizarre. Oswald schemes, lures, and outsmarts his opponents. Not to say he isn’t willing to do his own dirty work, but the vicious mess of it all seems - desperate. 

Thing have had to have been going really, terribly badly for Oswald if he’s gotten to this point of desperation.

But the thing is, Jim hasn’t heard of any chaos within the underworld. Neither upheaval nor a usurper. So what’s Oswald got to be so afraid of, to the point of desperation? 

Jim kicks himself for kissing him, for running after he stupidly kissed him, instead of staying and demanding answers. Someone has a knife to Oswald’s throat and Jim’s afraid he’s just signed up to protect the man as he officially becomes mayor that night, on live TV. 

And who else did they know who was so good, so adept, at playing the 24-hour news cycle like his personal scripted drama?

Jim needs to find out more about Theo Galavan.


	16. Chapter 16

Victor Zsasz isn’t so unnerving once you get to know the guy.

No, Oswald has no illusions about how screwed he’d be on the other end of the professional’s gun. But he’s the one pulling the strings now and it is surprisingly easy leading Victor around - he’s so compliant once you get him on your good side, let him sate his bloodlust frequently enough and he is a happy, happy man. 

“Now, chief?” Victor asks, two guns at the ready, as Oswald shakes Commissioner Loeb down. 

If a bit overeager. Like a puppy, really.

“One moment, Victor,” Oswald says. Then other effect of getting drunk on the killings seems, to Oswald at least, to put him back into a more primitive mindset. Trigger happy, rather than cunning. Victor’s seen a lot, as much as if not more than Oswald, but they have - and perhaps Oswald should count himself lucky for this - always focused on different things. Victor gets distracted by the violence, see, and Oswald wouldn’t let his enjoyment of such a thing distract him from a piece of leverage he can later use. Different skill sets.

The commissioner makes the customary pleas, and Oswald is proven right immediately when he realizes he would, indeed, refuse to reinstate Jim. Oh how he hates the man. Oswald supposes part of it is a jealously guarded grudge, yes, but part of it is also fear. Fear Jim will disrupt the old rank and order. Usher in a new day.Stand tall over Gotham, by Oswald’s side. Help shape the city into what he knows it can be, rather than what these old mongering fools of the old guard have been doing, bleeding her dry, slowly, and leaving not enough for the rest of them.

“Even if you do as I say, someday you’ll change your mind and you’ll turn on him again,” Oswald explains, motioning for Victor to go ahead. Of course, Loeb sees the seriousness of this and Oswald has the opening for his take-all move.

“Unless,” he says, theatrically drawing it out. “Oh, no, you’ll never agree.” Oh but he will.

He’s staring down the barrel of Victor’s gun and has no recourse, of course he will. A man who has spent his career lining his pockets, angling for security, building up a nice big nest egg, is the kind of man who wants to live.

He steps down gracefully enough. A pity Oswald isn’t there to see the look on his face as he grimaces his way through a nice press conference.

Jim’s emotions have been running amok these past few days, and more than Oswald wishes to see the commissioner, he wishes to sit beside Jim during the proceedings and pat him on the hand, remind him who it is who stood by him during this trying time.

On lonely nights, the ghost of Jim’s anguish has been a source of comfort. He is not so tempted to soothe it away - at least not yet - he feels it right Jim should suffer a while for slighting him in the first place. But it doesn’t mean he doesn’t wish he can’t experience this anguish up close. To offer himself as a source of comfort...and memorize every moment as Jim takes it.

He cares for the man, after all. He wouldn’t torment him to his face. (He is, actually, rather weak to Jim’s wills when they come face to face. But it’s the bond, he knows it is, and he is sure once they come to terms it will no longer be a hindrance.)

.

The news cycles are quickly dominated by some “Maniax” who’ve broken out of the dumpster for an excuse of an asylum. The multi-million development site has really been left to the wolves since the death of the Waynes.

Oswald sits frowning at the television as news vans play footage of the lunatics holding high society hostage at a charity event. First the headlines, then the home video they’d sent in of them terrorizing Captain Essen, now this. The city was just handing itself over to these clowns and this couldn’t stand. And this was Oswald’s business as much as it was polite society’s - both halves of the city had to come together to address this madness.

And of course, Detective Jim Gordon steps in to save the day. He’s considered whether Jim would be more useful to him with his beautiful morals and crack shot abilities as something other than a cop, but quickly realized it would go against everything the man is. Jim could not thrive, knowing he was turning his back on his calling to serve and protect. And Oswald wants Jim to be sure and understand that too. 

Oswald is perturbed when his door bangs open and Jim’s partner comes barreling in like a bull in a china shop. 

“Color me impressed,” he sneers, here to say something upsetting, though OSwald knows not what that is. “You know, if I close my eyes, still see you holding Fish's umbrella.”

He does an awful, simpering impression, and Oswald has to remind himself that this is Jim’s friend, Jim’s cherished partner, and he would not take lightly to his maiming.

“Detective Bullock. I heard you rejoined the force.” For Jim, obviously. And that he couldn’t stay away. Oswald doesn’t believe the man would come here merely to express his displeasure with Oswald’s new post, two minutes on the job, he wasn’t the type. “I am so happy for you.”

He says he’s here to talk, and Oswald would just like to get onto the listening already.

“See, there's talk on the street that Jim Gordon did a favor for you, collected a debt and the guy ended up dead,” Bullock says. 

“Rumors,” Oswald insists. That old thing? He’d taken care of it. No one was going to lift a finger, this wasn’t like Major Crimes, with Montoya and her ex vendetta. 

There’s a horrid pang in a chest for a moment, as he imagines Jim confiding to his partner in the quiet of night, seeking solace in the man after having done something to dirty his hands, to tarnish those beautiful morals of his. 

He’s offended - hurt. He gave Jim his word nothing would come of his actions, and Jim clearly hadn’t believed him. Turned to someone else instead. 

“Jim shouldn’t worry about that. He and I are friends,” Oswald says. He’s annoyed. Yet he hopes Bullock will be a good messenger and pass the message along. Jim has nothing to worry about.

Then Bullock tells him that something happened today, and Oswald was the obvious one to go to - as if he were still merely just a snitch, a CI to wait around for their convenience.

But still. It’s true. 

The Maniax count one Barbara Kean among their ranks and Jim has more reason than anyone to round them up and quickly. Plus there was the killing of the newly instated commissioner, who Oswald knows Jim cared for. He tangled with the mob easily enough in his early days, when pressed for time. Why not now, when it really counted? 

It doesn’t escape Oswald that even if Jim had come, he wouldn’t have had much to share.

It prickles.

A lot. 

He calls a conference of the underlings and brings them to order to and demand information. They have none. One of these idiots even thinks he’s been behind this and Oswald has to explain how absurd the reasoning would be. 

Truth be told, Oswald himself is stumped. He can’t quite discern the MO here, and can’t see how anyone stands to profit from a chaos which has sent everyone’s business tumbling.

This must mean a new player, a clever newcomer - else, it could just as easily be mad chance. Bad luck. In which case he hopes to deal with it swiftly.

“Running, squabbling hiding. This city belongs to us now, and that means responsibilities, kids,” Oswald reminds his underlings. The new generation, if you will. “We need to restore confidence in our brand, if you will. We need discipline and unity, yes? There will be no more chaos. No more gang wars. No more blood in the streets scaring descent folk. From now on if you want to kill someone, blackmail, steal, or kidnap anyone, I need to hear about it first.”

He rather thrives on this, knowing everything and anything. And now he has ample reason to demand it. Pity it comes at such dire times. But Oswald is sure that if he were in control, truly in control, pulling the strings of it all, everyone would be so much happier. And if only they’d let him - for their own good.

He blames his preoccupation with his business for not seeing it sooner. A woman barges in on the end of his meeting with a car for him.

“My brother wants to meet you,” she says. “Theodore Galavan.”

The newcomer playing at heroics the other night, before Jim Gordon came on the scene. Oswald’s false smile falls, as he wonders who this Galavan is, to send a messenger, his own blood no less, into the den of King of Gotham like some typical office errand.

He is no shining knight, that one. This much is obvious now. Why else would the billionaire businessman be sending a car for the mob boss of his new city? Rumor has it he has his sights on mayor, and has a pretty good chance too. But Oswald thinks it naive to believe this man just wants to pay his respects.

“Mr. Cobblepot, we finally meet,” Galavan says, standing up to greet him. They’d ridden an elevator up to his ostentatious penthouse, all glass and chrome and modern light fixtures. Though he has a wonderful view of the city here.

“Call me Penguin,” Oswald says. It’s a business meeting, they are certainly not friends. “How’s your head?”

“Oh, healing, thank you. It gave me quite a scare,” he says, sounding quite the opposite.

“You were lucky to get out of there with your life,” Oswald says just to see his reaction. To see how long he’s willing to keep up the pretenses. 

“Wasn’t I just?” Galavan says, giving Oswald a knowing look. Not long then. Oswald chuckles with barely contained mirth.

“Was it luck?” Oswald asks.

“You are a clever man,” Galavan returns with a smile, acquiescing. He called Oswald here for his allegiance, no doubt, and Oswald will not be the one to bow first. Galavan should consider him so lucky if this city wants him, though it seems he’s done well manipulating public opinion already. Oswald wouldn’t mind having a powerful ally in City Hall, but he wants the full measure of the man first.

“Perfect timing, my dear. Do you two know each other?” Galavan says to someone entering the room.

And Oswald turns to see Barbara Kean in satin pajamas with little shorts, strolling barefoot with a martini over to throw him a casual smirk.

“We’ve met.”

Well isn’t that a revelation. 

“Oh my,” Oswald says putting together the truth.

That Galavan broke out the lunatics to set his city ablaze irks him already, but that he specifically picked Jim’s ex as one among him makes him dislike the man just a little bit more.

“The Arkham breakout, the GCPD massacre - Jerome and the Maniax - All you,” Oswald says. So stabbing Jerome on live television was merely cleanup. “Of course.”

“Guilty,” Galavan says with his hands up and not a hint of remorse. “It was foolish of me to think I could trick the King of Gotham.”

And that must mean Oswald is Phase Two.

Even Barbara Kean seems to take pity on him, now in the role Jerome has left vacant, and she hands him her martini. Oswald blinks as he takes it - what could possibly make Galavan think he’d deign to work with his man.

Or, more precisely: how far did his power reach?

He sets the drink down and warns them not to underestimate him. He does not like these two newcomers, sitting high and mighty as they look down on him with their new money and new plans. 

Gotham, once a labor of love, has become “an old crumbling pigsty,” Galavan tells him, unveiling his little model city with a stage magician-like flourish.

“It’s time to move into the future, a cleaner, brighter future,” he says. 

Oswald walks over to the glowing blue cluster of eyesores, new skyscrapers that would tower over the rest of the city, and wonder if Galavan is the one who belongs in Arkham. On closer inspection, he realizes this five block radius is smack dab in the center of what is currently the Village, which, yes, it may be a bit run down, but it’s one of those neighborhoods of Gotham full of culture and history and where neighbors kept a protective hold over the place that was their own.

“Uh, that’s a residential area,” Oswald points out to him. “So, thousands of homes would have to be destroyed, wouldn’t they?”

“Yeah, so?” It’s the flippant sister, the one who called him King of Garbage. Tabitha, was it? He wonders if she is doing this deliberately to push his buttons, and doesn’t quite care if she is, he doesn’t want her anywhere near his city.

“Here’s the rub. In order to rebuild I need first to destroy, but I can’t do that,” Galavan explains. “I mean, watch the news, I’m the hero. But you! You have a certain flair for such a task.”

Oswald swallows, understanding what the request will be, and bitter that this is his image. This is not - this will not be his legacy. Oswald himself certainly understands the delicate task of destruction, and what is necessary to rebuild. But he cannot condone this - this gauche and gaudy plan of Galavan’s. And he certainly will not once again be reduced to lackey.

He’s worked far too hard for that.

“You, Penguin, you will be my destroyer,” Galavan says, and Oswald actually laughs. The gall of this man.

“Truly, I’m flattered. Thank you so much for thinking of me. But, my dear sir, you have me all wrong,” Oswald says, with a niggling need to set the record straight. “I have no flair for destruction. I’m a builder. A problem solver.”

“Besides, such a huge project would need the support of hundreds of city officials,” Oswald adds, feeling generous. There’s a reason Arkham was sought-after property to begin with - development permits had been pushed through already and the construction contracts would divert millions into the pocket of workers. 

Galavan doesn’t seem to think it will be a problem - because he would be mayor soon, and have all the official support he needed. 

This...

This sits poorly with Oswald, to think this new upstart who doesn’t give a damn about Gotham can swoop in and become the city’s darling so quickly. That a man like this can buy the control Oswald has only just now gotten a hand on, and ruin all of his plans.

And simply because he’s a, what, a hero?

“But alas,” Galavan says, “some of my other competitors actually stand a chance, so they’ll have to go.”

The sister hands Oswald a folder, and Oswald takes it simply because he has manners, but scoffs at Galavan’s audacity. “Go?” he asks, with disbelief.

“And I’m gonna need you to take a crack at me, also,” Galavan continues, as if he hasn’t noticed Oswald’s reservation. “And miss of course. Don’t want anyone to think that I had anything to do with my fellow candidates’ demise.”

Oswald has had enough. He sets down the folder emphatically, and tells him where exactly he can find the sort of hitman he’s looking for. Someone else to do his dirty work. 

He should have known a man as clever as the one who devised this plot would have had something up his sleeve to ensure his chosen hitman would not - could not say no.

The television screen turns on, and Oswald is so stricken by the sight he cannot spare the thought to wonder why Galavan would want him of all people to do his dirty work.

Because that’s his mother.

Galavan has Gertrude Kapelput. Chained up in a room like - like some animal! In distress.

Oh, his mother.

“I swear, I swear I don’t know about-“ she cries.

“You’ll pay for this!” Oswald spits, turning on Galavan. 

But he isn’t even phased. He just holds out the folder.

“They die, your mother lives. Simple.”

With the sound of his mother’s cries behind him, it’s not a decision he needs long to make. He snatches up the folder and then trains his eyes on the screen again, scanning for anything, any clues that this is a trick. Any hint of where his mother could be. Oh, what has he done, with his busy new position and complete neglect in familial duties - no, what have they done?

Oswald is heartbroken. A lesser man might regret his actions and repent, but he is a visionary and he will see this through, and come out greater on the other side. He will bide his time and rescue his mother and then Galavan will pay - a broken bone for every moment of distress he’s caused Mother, Oswald imagines - and he will wish he never set foot in this city.

.

Item number one is shooting at Galavan during his own press conference, to boost his message. It’s easy enough, and Oswald only wishes he a bullet would fly astray and kill the man.

But he’s not stupid. He would not endanger Mother’s life over a petty moment of rage.  


Oswald has used blanks, to be safe, and it’s enough of a scare. 

Item number two is Janice Caulfield, who actually is polling alright, though unlikely to win. He’s on a tight schedule, and frankly would like to get it over with.

“Someone tried to kill Theo Galavan this morning, are you here to kill me?” she asks, standing straight and trying not to buckle.

“Actually, yes,” Oswald said.

“Please, no,” she begs as he grabs her. “I’m a mother - wait!”

And that’s the problem, isn’t it? “I have a mother too,” Oswald tells her, unable to keep a tremor out of his voice. His hand has been forced. He has no choice. Oswald thinks about making it quick - but there’s only so much a switchblade can do - and he gets lost in it for a moment think of what he would do if this were Galavan’s body in his grasp instead.

It’s not over yet, but Oswald is wracked with worry. 

In truth, he hasn’t been himself. He’s been sloppy.

He’s tried to keep the scale of it small, carrying the hits out himself. Not involving others if necessary. Not wanting word to get out. But Hobbs is well protected, so Oswald calls his best and most reliable. He calls Zsasz.

Even Butch thinks he’s crazy, even as he carries out orders.

“They have my mother, Butch,” Oswald finally says, as they sit staking out Hobbs location waiting to send Victor in. If he can’t confide in his drone of a servant, who can he tell? “Galavan and his sister. They have her - they’re making me do this.”

“Holy smoke,” he breathes. “We gotta find your mom.”

Oswald agrees.

“If they find out we’re looking, they’ll hurt her,” he says. It even hurts to say, he care barely voice it aloud. If they find he’s looking - they’ll kill her. Butch offers a comforting word, and though it doesn’t carry much weight, Oswald lets himself accept the small token.

The hit goes off, but it ends in a shoot out as the GCPD catches up to them. Oswald can’t see Jim right now, he can’t -

Oh, he hasn’t even thought about Jim, how this might-

Oswald squeezes his hands. 

He is sure that Jim would want to help even him, in this situation. The irony. Oswald can’t tell Jim, because it wouldn’t just be Jim. He can’t involve the cops in this, with their lack of stealth or subtlety. They certainly cannot be relied upon. And this was not the sort of dispute that fell neatly within the law, was it?A man like Galavan, clever enough to cover his tracks by using the Penguin, would not make their job easy.

Jim comes, that night, he must have come right after exchanging blows with Victor. Oswald’s been drinking, but nothing helps. His eyes are dry and he’s unable to shed another tear. Jim is everything he wants right now, but just Jim, not the cops.

“You killed Caulfield, we have a witness,” Jim says, dashing Oswald’s hopes. He can’t muster up the strength to get up, or greet him, or anything. It’s all Oswald can do to not collapse in grief, or tear everything in front of him to pieces to vent his frustrations. 

Jim doesn’t stop, listing crimes as he comes around the table, leans over into Oswald’s space even as he tells Jim not now.

“It’s complicated! Okay?” It comes out more broken and quiet than he intended. Jim must see that as well, turning confused rather than confronting. He asks why Oswald’s doing this and of course he can’t tell him! And as if blind to Oswald’s anguish, he goes on and on, about his new captain and the law, forcing Oswald to stand with a bang, and shut him up, if only to push him away to get some quiet. Quiet - yes that’s what he needed, he needed to think. He could outthink Galavan, outsmart him - save his mother and best him, then kill him. Slowly.

“Rousing speech!” Oswald tells him, ignoring the flutter in his stomach seeing Jim’s face shift to deeply concerned. “But you came here alone.”

He intends to bully Jim into leaving if need be. He doesn’t have time to feel touched that he came alone to warn him, or that he snuck over in the middle of the night because he’s ashamed. Well he should be ashamed, thinking Oswald had planned to use Og-

He stands stunned, because Jim’s hands are on his collar, hauling him close. This is familiar enough, he thinks wryly, but the kiss is not.

The kiss is frantic, messy, desperate. Teeth clash, nipping his lip, and it’s - you could barely call it a kiss, all intention and no finesse.

And Jim’s done barely before he’s had a moment to register it, letting go of Oswald, so stunned he falls back in his seat. He sees Jim retreat, unsure step by unsure step, until he turns on his heel and goes the way he came. Without even a word. Or a look back. He doesn’t run, exactly, but it’s a close thing.

Oswald just stares after him.

.

It turns out he’s not too proud to grovel, after all. Or at least, he shouldn’t be, with his mother’s life on the line.

Oswald is so wretched with failure and grief he cannot even muster up a convincingly pathetic performance, he fears. But plead he does, trying to convince Galavan he has nothing to lose by letting Mother go. This is a boot on his throat and he cannot breathe.

“If you let her come home I would still do your bidding,” he says. He lets Galavan get his jabs in, pleads some more, hoping pity will do the trick. It doesn’t, and Butch here too is a poor prop - then it occurs to him. Butch is a prop, and he hasn’t been making use of him. 

Galavan’s refusal only gives Oswald fresh wounds to nurse as he makes his way home, declaring they shall storm him by force. Hurt him until he returns Mother. He’s in the middle of his half baked plan when some lackey comes in to tell him the cops have hit the count house - taking his millions with them. Oswald sees red, grabbing the fireplace poker and chasing after the man - everyone always underestimates his limp - and beats him bloody. He imagines Galavan’s body twitching and broken and gets in a few extra swings. Then - perhaps it is the clarity that comes with violence - he gets an idea.

Later, the sister comes with a new job for the Penguin. Arson this time, as a cover for theft, and he plays up the paranoia, the annoyance at Butch, laying the groundwork for later. 

While he sends Butch to take care of the arson errand as he plots, imagining the chain of events in his mind. The wounded servant would profess his hatred of Oswald, of course, and the Galavans would find superiority in Butch’s newfound hatred of the Penguin. He’d leak the whereabouts of Mother to Oswald’s people, and once rescued, Oswald would unleash hell on that mayor-to-be. 

The job ends up netting Galavan an antique knife, which, oddly enough seems to belong to the Waynes. Many people wanted something of the Waynes, yes, but this was a knife, and an old one at that. Sentimental value? No. 

Oswald has always found it helpful to talk his plans aloud, and he voices his findings to Butch.

“There’s something here. Something to understanding Galavan, to beating him,” Oswald says. 

And Butch shares an interesting nugget of information: Edwidge.

“Trust me,” Butch says. “She knows things.”

He sends for her, and Oswald’s spirits lift seeing her recognition. She’s reluctant to share its cursed history, but for the price of her life she’s more than willing to spin the tale of founding Gotham. The five old families and a love triangle. Oswald listens patiently, waiting for the connection to Galavan. 

The Waynes wiped all remnants of the Dumas from the city, no stone unturned, and Oswald remembers the bitter tone with which Galavan talked about the foundations of the city being built 200 years ago. He practically vibrates with excitement, the glee so familiar when he discovers a new opponent’s weak spot. 

He thinks the story over as he ruminates the plan he had been building. The Waynes don’t play into it, not now, but he’ll have use for that piece of information yet. 

What he needs to do is send a spy into Galavan’s ranks, and that would be tough with his widening influence, were it not for the fact that Oswald still has one trump card who cannot refuse him, courtesy of Victor Zsasz.

Edwidge’s story gave Oswald the perfect bow to tie up the plan with - he’s hoping it sends a message, elicits fear or sympathy, as Galavan looks at the handless arm of Butch Gilzean.

But Oswald isn’t needlessly cruel. If he must amputate his man’s arm, he shall at least pour him a glass. He procures Butch’s favorite, giddy as the servant takes a drink against his will, showing the conditioning still in tact. Good. It must stay that way. 

He explains the plan to Butch, plainly. Let them think he is going mad. Let them think that in his paranoid rage he has turned on even his closest men.

He swings the cleaver down on Butch’s arm.

.

He gets bad news before he gets good news. The conditioning holds - Butch returns with no grudges, even as the end of his arm is wrapped in bloody bandages, and tells him he’s found nothing yet. 

And when it rains, it pours. Next, Oswald hears Jim’s gone and endorsed Galavan for mayor - a great betrayal, even if Jim probably thinks he’s doing it for some white hat reason.

When Butch returns, bloodied and breathless, Oswald doesn’t think twice. He buys the story - that Butch found his Mother in some abandoned port warehouse.

They discovered him, Butch says, but he got away after being chained up to play with. There’s a narrow window of time, but Oswald has a real chance of rescuing his mother.

He takes two more of his men and they make their way as quickly as humanly possible to the warehouse, Oswald hoping, praying that he gets there in time. It’s unguarded, and looking for all intents and purposes abandoned, but inside that dim, damp concrete box Oswald spots a makeshift cell and his sweet mother’s face.

“Oswald! Is that really you?” Mother cries, and he is giddy with victory as he rushes to her side.

“Mother! I’m taking you home,” he promises. The door is locked, but he brought bolt cutters, and he retreats back to Butch to retrieve it.

He’s so close - but the lights turn on as if Galavan has arranged this all as a dramatic reveal. The man and his sister step out, condescending as usual, and Oswald has had enough of catering to his whims. 

He’s well armed, whereas they look like they’ve come alone. The insinuation that Tabitha Galavan has enjoyed tormenting Mother is one Oswald will make her suffer in kind for. 

Galavan has to gall to dangle the key in front of him, literally, so Oswald orders Butch to shoot them and grab the key. 

He’s never wanted his mother to see this side of him, only the beautiful life that he could not provide her. But this was not the time.

Yet - when the shots come, the Galavans are still standing.

Oswald turns angrily at Butch only to find the man approaching him menacingly.It’s done - his conditioning is gone, and Butch has betrayed him. The gravity of the situation is nearly enough to engulf him, so Oswald tries the very last thing he can do, and he begs. He is willing to trade his life for hers, though he will fight the moment he is able to, because nothing is more important than getting his mother to safety right now, in this moment. 

He knows his odds are no good, the Galavans still joking and gloating as he begs, as he drops to his knees and offers anything.

The shock must be evident on his face when Galavan voices he is considering it. Oswald had had little hope, and it was all he could do to hold onto that hope. His elation is indescribable as Mother is set free and rushes into his arms. He embraces her, tears in his eyes, barely a thought for all Galavan might ask from him in return. All that matters now is that she is safe, and he tries to reassure her so.

And then he sees her expression dull. 

It takes a moment to register, the awful horror of it all. But when he does, Oswald cries like a wounded animal. 

He staggers back, Mother still in his arms, drooping.

“No!!” he screams. Tears swim in his eyes as he lowers Mother to the ground, sobbing over her as he gets a last look. He can’t think. He only feels shattered. He takes in her gentle stroking of his hair as she smiles, watery, gaze starting to lose focus, and coos his name.

“Oswald, what is wrong?” she asks, and it is all he can do not to upset her. He’s done it a million times, what’s once more? He sniffles, shaking away his tears. “You look so sad.”

“Nothing’s wrong, Mother. Nothing at all,” he assures her. He laughs, because her last sight of her son shouldn’t be the sniveling failure who cost her her life. It shouldn’t be of an utter disappointment of a child, who lived up to none of the great things she had been so sure he would grow up to achieve. Her last look should be of the Oswald that had assured her, and brought her comfort and joy in life, smiling. He does his best to smile. Tears run down the side of her face as she smiles back.

“We’re together now. That’s all that matters,” Oswald says. He’s likely done for as well, though he won’t go quietly. He’s ready. Without Mother, what is there? It’s always only been the two of them, against the world. He’s had no one else. She’s had no one else, and now he’s failed her.

“Ever since you were little baby,” she tells him, sweetly. “My little Cobblepot.”

The tears he’s tried so hard to hold back start to fall. His voice cracks and he says, “I’m sorry.” He wishes he could say it a thousand times more.

“This is my fault,” he confesses. He cannot leave without her forgiveness. “Please forgive me, I am so sorry.” 

“For what?” Mother says. “You were always such a good boy.”

And like that, she is gone. Her hand falls from his cheek, and Oswald is not ready. He panics, he sobs, and lowers his Mother as gently as humanly possible to the ground with a kiss. 

Galavan has the audacity to sound bored as he orders the death sentence Oswald knew was coming. But now that Mother is gone his thoughts are consumed with nothing but revenge. These evil siblings who have taken her away from him must pay, with pain and blood.

Oswald, crouched low in his grief, is the perfect picture of pitiful. He knows this, and has taken the opportunity to think of a weapon. He typically carries a knife; small, thin blades pointed so that their sharpness barely matters if you thrust hard enough. But he thinks it appropriate to use the one in his mother’s back, to end Galavan’s life.

He wants Galavan close, so he has a shot. He may die before the hour’s end, but so will they. People always underestimate him, slight as he may seem, but he is deadly. And now he has nothing to lose.

“You don’t have the guts to kill me yourself?” Oswald spits at him. He grinds in an insult for good measure, sure to get his blood boiling, enough to want to be the one to end it, even if he’s less practiced with a weapon than his sister. 

“No wonder your family was run out of town. You come from a long line of cowards!”

It works. 

Not only does he stand inches away to cock Butch’s gun at him, he leans in to ask if he has any last words.

“Yes,” Oswald snarls, grabbing the handle of the dagger. “I am going to kill you!”

He gets in a cut to the neck but not deep enough - Galavan screams, falling back, and Oswald sees he has no opportunity to take his revenge - but there is an opening for escape. They chose poorly, coming by the docks. Oswald knows which side the waters lie, and runs for his life, crashing through a window with the help of Tabitha’s bullets breaking glass, and falls until he hits the water.

Oswald dives deep, swimming lengths away before he dares come up for air again. This again. He thinks how these waters saved his life, when Jim Gordon couldn’t take the shot. He thinks about Fish Mooney, who went over and into the waters after a gunshot wound. 

He came back many times stronger the last time, and he is determined this time it shall be the same.

Oswald gathers a veritable army in the dark the moment as soon as he is back on land and can get word out. He is not worried about Galavan chasing after him, no, the man is too busy with the pomp and circumstance of becoming mayor, hogging every news channel with his incessant blather. 

This monster who murdered Mother, being handed the keys to the city.

“I’d also like to address the recent attempt on my life by the man known as Penguin,” Galavan says unprompted at one of his press conferences. So he’s gloating. ”It is true, he attacked me, and as of now he is still at large.”

“Men such as Penguin will no longer be tolerated. These are men who scurry from the light of decency like cockroaches,” he says. Strange, perhaps, that Oswald cannot even muster offense. Standing in the dark, hiding away from the light of a society Galavan has conned into loving him, Oswald feels no shame about his predicament, only shame that he could not protect Mother.

Galavan looks straight into the camera, as he adds, “Men who even a mother could not love.”

It’s all Oswald can do not to burst into tears again. Heartbreak and regret is all that is driving him now. He could not keep mother safe, and tearing Galavan apart with his own two hands is the only way he can think to balance the scales. He turns the television off with a smash.

He’s sorry.

He’s still sorry. So sorry that he got her into this mess. That he didn’t have the foresight to defend this. That he couldn’t protect the one person who loves - loved him.

The pain eats away at him from inside his rib cage.

“He dies,” Oswald declares. “Tonight.”

Tonight is his victory party, and it will be fitting. The citizens of Gotham who voted for this monster can watch their new mayor die for his transgressions.

Oswald is no fool, he knows Galavan will be expecting him. Knows that he’s baiting him. He decides against using his army of assembled muscle, instead taking it a step further. 

He throws money at the endeavor, makes promises he doesn’t know if he will live to keep. He raises an army of lookalikes - outfits them himself, and gives them strict instructions on how to move. They will march en masse to storm the mayor’s mansion, distracting whatever security forces are in place as he sneaks right up to the entrance unseen. They’ll want to get Galavan in a car amid the chaos, and Oswald will be right there.

He wants to watch the man as he dies.

While his doppelgängers crash the party, Oswald takes advantage of the chaos to grab a police walkie and he listens in for where they’ll be taking Galavan. He’s instructed them to take down as many men as they can, and this is sure to cause madness.

And the thing is, he knew Jim would be here. The mayor’s using GCPD as his own private security team tonight, and of _course_ Jim would be running point. He even hears on the comms that Detective Gordon is with the newly minted mayor.

But when Oswald comes face to face with the man, some of the fight seeps out of him.

If it was anyone else, Oswald would have shot them first.

And he is not willing to shoot Galavan in cold blood right in front of Jim, even though he is quite certain Jim won’t shoot to kill even if he does. He doesn’t think this is him sparing Jim the decision of having to arrest him, but what he is is tired. So tired. 

Jim should be on his side. _His._

Not protecting this _monster._

Oswald shoots the driver first, then watches as a hilarious play of emotions crosses Jim’s face.

“Hello Jim,” Oswald says, leveling his shotgun. Jim doesn’t put his gun down either. But when he looks at him, Oswald can feel Jim’s heart break, just a little.

And then the bond locks into place. 

It’s been a long time coming, but this is the worst possible time.

Jim’s hand doesn’t even tremor as the inexorable grief Oswald has been carrying washes over him. Now, of all times, Jim chooses to accept him? When he’s staring down the barrel of Oswald’s gun?

He can’t do this right now.

“Please step aside,” Oswald says with a tilt of his head, a demand despite his cordial tone. 

“You know I can’t do that,” Jim says, voice heavy with - something.

“You would if you knew what kind of man you were protecting,” Oswald says. Because Jim is a good man, maybe the only good man left in Gotham. It sickens him that Galavan is cowering behind this noble protector, whispering in his ear to shoot. 

“Oswald, listen to me. You have to put the gun down!” Jim sounds - desperate even. But whatever Jim has to answer to cannot bear as much weight as the life of Mother.Oswald has managed to stay cold and focused on the mission all this while, but even thinking of her a mere moment sends fresh tears to his eyes. His mouth strains in a frown to keep his lips from trembling, from collapsing into a blubbering mess on the side of the road. He needs Jim to _understand._

“He killed my mother, Jim,” Oswald says. It occurs to him for the first time he has no proof of any kind. He can only rely on Jim’s willingness to believe him, but aside from that, Gertrude Kapelput is gone. Her body had already been moved when he sent men back. There is no one but Oswald to remember her now, and no one either to serve justice. Just him. He did this.

To his surprise, Jim nearly relents. Something in his eyes change, and his voice is wretched as he tells Oswald, “I know.”

Oswald is shaking with emotion - confusion, anger, and the grief that returns to soon overpower all other feeling. Jim can’t have known long, or planned to let Galavan get away with it, not with the shocked jerk of Galavan’s head when Jim makes that particular reveal. But if he knows, why will he not step aside? Surely - _now_ of _all_ times - 

Galavan growls in his ears, ordering him to kill Oswald, and Oswald can see Jim is wavering, sorely tempted to let Oswald do what he came for. He steps closer to plead his case, tells Jim how Galavan had her murdered right before his eyes, how he let her die in his arms.

“Do you know what that’s like? It changes a person.” A light in Jim’s eyes - surprising - it’s recognition. Oswald almost has him - almost, but then Jim’s partner comes up behind him, gun pointed at his head.

No way out then.

No matter. Oswald is close enough by now that no one is stopping him from shooting Galavan from less than ten feet away. Jim may not shoot, but Bullock sure might. Short of revealing their connection - which will only disadvantage them in the near future - Oswald scrambles to find some way to make Jim ask his own partner to stand down. If only for his own good.

“One of us is going to die with that, and I’ve made my peace with that. I suggest the new mayor does as well,” Oswald says.

“Don’t make us shoot you,” Jim asks, looking worse for wear by the moment.

“Shoot me and you have no idea what his endgame is!” Oswald says, using information like a familiar bargaining chip. “And you should, because it concerns someone you know. Someone you care about.”

Jim never has to make that decision, because a shot comes from above and behind, and Oswald is down, clutching his shoulder in pain and gritting his teeth to drag himself forward away from oncoming gunfire.

With Jim and his partner returning fire as cover, Oswald manages to get in the car and drive off - forfeiting his chance at Galavan. 

He drives, drives like mad, thinking of where to hide. He needs to stay alive yet, and come back to finish the job. 

Oswald manages to ditch the car and steal another, but he the wound and the pain and making his world blur. He’s on the run for a whole day and by night he has made it to the woods, lucking out when he discovers a ranger’s trailer is empty, but the man must be coming back. He’s taken his rifle, of course, but there are other things to use as a weapon and Oswald sits in terrible anticipation as he awaits the ranger’s return.

He hears the crunching of leaves and clumsy footsteps that suggest a fall, and decides the element of surprise will be necessary for him to overpower the man in hiswretched state. He bursts out the door, weapon raised high, and sees it’s not the ranger.

It’s that pencil pusher, from Jim’s work, and he recognized Oswald as Mr. Penguin. Oswald supposes he should be grateful for this twist in his fate, but is in much too much pain to do so.

“Help me, please,” he says, slumping to the ground. And then everything goes dark.


End file.
